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Weekly UpdatesWhen teachers at the 18 schools supported by the Lawrence Township School Foundation need extra supplies, they can post their wish lists on a part of the foundation's Web site that works much like a bridal registry.
Customers purchasing home furnishings at the Habitat for Humanity store in Oak Ridge, Tenn., can opt to jump on a mailing list for future specials or coupons.
Contributors to the Catholic Church in Chicago receive letters from the archbishop asking if they have anyone for him to include in his prayers in November, which begins with All Saints Day.
The common denominator is that all of the programs are run by donor management software that has been stretched to take on tasks beyond the normal bounds of recording a gift, generating a thank you note and putting the name on next year's direct mail list.
To be sure, the innovative functions amount to variations on the theme that all involve people giving something to a nonprofit and then cataloging the information for future use. A number of the programs have flexibility written into them, if only by having programmers work with the clients to turn various features on or off to meet specific needs. Jay B. Love, president and CEO of the Indianapolis-based eTapestry Inc. subsidiary of Blackbaud Inc., estimates that about half of his customers use the software for purposes other than strictly fundraising.
"This is not cookie-cutter software coming in a shrink-wrapped box," Mark Connors, vice president of Amergent, based in Peabody, Mass., and its Portfolio software. "We work with clients to achieve aiming for a CRM (constituent relationship management) solution across the enterprise."
According to Tui Allen, a practice manager with Blackbaud in Charleston, S.C., "Faith-based organizations tend to be a sector a little less served by technology, so they are more likely to push the envelope with what they have."
Some in the industry go so far as to argue that donor management software, at least as defined by the bundle of functions grouped under the term for more than a decade, is nearing an inevitable evolution. "We need to stop talking about donor management," said David Lawson, vice president of market strategy at San Diego-based Kintera Inc. "It had a nice run, a generation. But we are now moving to donor engagement."
With the spread of information on the Web, donors now can access information at any time, he said. The regular donor systems, in this environment, will give way to software that will accommodate this and allow a nonprofit to track on one screen all its connections to each donor and vice versa.
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Still, the software is not being put through wholesale rewrites to handle way-off-the-chart applications such as making hats or basic operations. "The programmers really cringe when they hear the word customization," said Lawson, because of the connotation of a one-of-a-kind package, instead of just a modification of a standard platform.
In addition, some groups will move beyond donor management only in carefully measured steps. The Archdiocese of Chicago uses Amergent's Portfolio program to record everyone who contributed any amount during the previous three years, a list that contains 175,000 names. These people are then invited to return prayer intention cards in October for Archbishop Francis Cardinal George to remember in his masses the following month.
"This is strictly a pastoral thing and not a fundraising tool," said Ray Coughlin, the director of stewardship and development. "We get baskets and baskets of cards. People feel a connection to the archbishop."
While he said the program has worked well, he is not looking to extend its reach any time soon. He vividly remembers an embarrassing incident a few years ago when, using a different vendor, the archdiocese sent personalized letters to several hundred thousand people with the wrong letters stuffed into the envelopes.
"I still get shivers when I think about that one," he said. "Everything has to be absolutely right."
The Lawrence Township School Foundation, formed 25 years ago to help support public schools in the northeast part of Indianapolis, found that teachers were spending an average of about $324 a year out of their own pockets for classroom needs. After sifting though several options, the foundation decided to adapt its eTapestry package to handle the online teacher wish list, said Executive Director Christie Love (no relation to Jay).
Although she did not have numbers on the income generated by the list--the foundation as a whole has raised more than $2 million since 1983--she said donors have responded. "It is very personal for people who want to get involved and see the effects immediately," she said. Interest was spurred during the first two years by $10,000 matching grants offered by local businesses.
Many of the teachers list gift certificates or sums needed to help low-income students pay for field trips. But specific items, such as new choir risers, also get posted.
The Habitat for Humanity in Anderson County, Tenn., which runs the Oak Ridge store, purchased its Sage Software package in 2005 in response to an edict by the head office to improve and standardize various functions, including the tracking of volunteer time, at all its local chapters. While the store is run by a different system, customers who agree at the checkout counter can get on this list for various promotions, which is kept on the donor database.
In addition, said Executive Director Susan Burgess-Parrish, the software logs how much work a volunteer performs, when it took place and places a dollar value on it according to standards set by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. This information, in turn, helps land grants where the donors expect to see the chapter contributing value, said Burgess-Parrish.
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