GiftWorks: Nonprofit Fundraising Software

GiftWorks 2008 Premium Coming in June

It's been one busy spring here at Mission Research.  My colleague Pat Weaver wrote in a recent letter to consultant partners, "We hope you're enjoying the start of Spring and all the possibilities it brings.  These past few weeks have passed in a blur.  It's been intense, exciting, exhausting and exhilarating...with much more fun to come.  We're busy working on post-launch GW 2008 Standard and pre-launch of GW 2008 Premium.  There's no rest for the weary and we wouldn't have it any other way!"

She really sums up where we are quite well.  GiftWorks 2008 Premium is next on our fundraising software horizon - we're moving at a rapid pace toward a June release that includes all of the enhancements found in GiftWorks 2008 Standard along with four major additional features.  They are:

Enhanced Security:  GiftWorks 2008 Premium will provide nonprofits with the ability to regulate the level of GiftWorks access for each user.  There will be several pre-defined roles, such as Administrator, User, and Guest, but each of these will be flexible and can be defined uniquely too. For example, the GiftWorks administrator can determine whether a user can add or edit donor records, or whether she can view donation information or not.  I can imagine many nonprofits who use volunteers for volunteer management projects or for data entry, and want to let them do their work in GiftWorks without seeing some of the sensitive donation information.  This will now be very easy to manage!

Seasonal Address Managment:  Lots of snowbirds in your area?  Their changing residences will be easy to manage with our seasonal address manager.  Simply specify the dates of the seasonal address and GiftWorks will automatically make that address primary in those date ranges.

More Custom Fields:  GiftWorks 2008 Premium will have 110 custom fields available - 55 for donors and  55 for donations, making it possible to track just about anything! 

USPS Bulk Mail:  Eligible nonprofits (as defined by the USPS) will be able to acheive the best nonprofit mailing rates with ease using GiftWorks to help meet the requirements for Standard Mail Machinable and Standard Mail Automation rates. 

We will continue to finish out Spring of 2008 with more hard work and a new product for the nonprofit sector - GiftWorks 2008 Premium!  Thanks for your continued interest and support that makes it all worthwhile.

-Mary Pat Donnellon

Our Newest Endorsement: Idaho Nonprofit Center

We are proud to announce our endorsement by another state nonprofit association:  Idaho Nonprofit Center!  The mission of the Idaho Nonprofit Center is to "provide a toolbox (resources) to build strong and accountable nonprofits and a soapbox (platform) to rally public involvement and gain support for the nonprofit sector." 

The state of Idaho has over 4,000 public charitable nonprofit organizations and the majority of them are small - over 85% have budgets of $500,000 or less.  INC Executive Director Lynn Hoffman and Associate Executive Director Debbie Bloom recognize the need these organizations have for comprehensive, understandable, and affordable tools to do their critical work, and that includes fundraising software so these nonprofits can raise ever-necessary funds most effectively. 

Idaho Nonprofit Center is the 7th state association to partner with GiftWorks.  Other partners include the Council of Community Services of New York State, Pennsylvania Association of Nonprofit Organizations, Utah Nonprofits Association, Colorado Nonprofit Association, Connecticut Association of Nonprofits, and Hawai'i Alliance of Nonprofit Organizations.

All of these organizations are nonprofit leaders in their states and we are honored to work with them so closely.  Whether you are a nonprofit, consultant, or other reader who cares about the nonprofit sector, do consider joining your state nonprofit association (check here to find your state's association).  You will be amazed at the resources they provide and service they perform for the collective nonprofit community.

-Mary Pat Donnellon

GiftWorks 2008 Standard Upgrade is Here!

As promised, the GiftWorks 2008 Standard Upgrade is available for our customers today!  We released GiftWorks 2008 Standard to the public on March 17, and now have it available as an upgrade to existing customers.  Many nonprofits have already ordered the upgrade and will receive it today.

Our team has been overwhelmed by the enthusiam for the enhancements delivered in GiftWorks 2008.  We are grateful to all of our customers for providing excellent feedback that has helped us shape this next generation of GiftWorks.  We are also grateful to our consultant partners.  This stellar group of professionals serving the nonprofit community has provided us with both constructive critism and praise, and has helped to steer our product and our company in direction that best serves the nonprofit community.   For their hours of beta-testing, review, instruction and more, well, it is really impossible to thank them enough.  Maybe the best thank you would be to remind you that you can find nonprofit consultants in your area on our website by clicking the Partners tab.

Finally, with GiftWorks 2008 we have some hopefully very helpful new resources.  I encourage everyone to check out the GiftWorks 2008 Guides.  From Donor Management to Campaign Management, these guides help nonprofits use GiftWorks 2008 to achieve their fundraising goals.  These guides are the result of a team effort:  Fundraising consultant Karen Schaller of Bangor, Maine; Chris Walker and the Mission Reserach crew; and editor Craig Lauer all collaborated to create them.  We also have some short videos created by our own Russ Burke, which highlight different GiftWorks 2008 features.  Check them out here!

Next up:  GiftWorks 2008 Premium.  Coming soon so stay tuned!

--Mary Pat Donnellon 

   

AFP: Splendors of Vendors

It's great to see customers and partners at AFP! We've had a great time here. My talk on sustainability was well-received by a small group of people who decided to take the message and methods of sustainability home with them. I'll post the powerpoint (ugh) here later now (2 MB) Download nonprofits_should_be.ppt.

Here's the near-empty room of people really committed to this...

The people in the pic are writing down their email addresses, and Mary Pat Donnellon of the MR Nonprofit Division will be creating some sort of email list or online group to keep the discussion going.

What was notable was that most people said their organizations are largely resistant to sustainable practices.

I made the point that the AFP conference itself doesn't reflect sustainable practices--no recycling, lots of waste, lots of virgin paper used. I'd like to see a zero waste event, like the Craig's List Foundation does for its   Nonprofit Boot Camp.

So then I headed down to the show. Now, I really like a good exhibit hall. But I've never liked nonprofit vendors spending a lot of money on big booths. To me it's a reflection of how much they charge nonprofits, and where their profits from nonprofits go--showy corporate booths, among other things.

Here's Blackbaud...

pretty big, lots of staff--clearly a publicly traded company that appreciates having their own dry-cleaning on the Blackbaud campus. Raiser's Edge customers finance that...

and here's Kintera. I had a nice talk with one of the Kintera folks. Kintera has been struggling for years, with a murky marketing message, overspending by the former CEO, and a low stock price with employee stock options under water.

But things are going better for them. They have some good marketing tools, and they've won a couple of significant deals recently from large nonprofits. Last week I bought Kintera stock at a mere 54 cents, expecting a turnaround. It's been in the works for about a year, and I bet they do fine.

Big booth, but more modest than the others. 

And here's GiftWorks. Maybe we'll do a big booth some year. But I doubt it, unless we can keep it simple. Anyway, it's up to the Nonprofit Division boss...Mary Pat. 

Ok--back to the grind. I've got some work to do on a social networking add-in the R&D division has been working on as a training project for some new developers. I'll post on that soon...