Charity fundraising is the lifeblood of your organization and your donors are critical to ongoing operations. Finding new donors and maintaining existing donor relationships can be made easier by using dedicated donor management software.

Challenges of Donor Management

It's easy to understand the value of donors to non-profit organizations, but locating and cultivating donors can be a difficult process if you're not tapping into the right resources.

Non-profits can leverage the strategies that for-profit marketers have used for years -- a highly targeted marketing campaign allows you to generate higher quality needs. When you focus your message on contacts that have already shown interest in similar causes, you are more likely to turn those contacts into people who can help your organization. Analysis of your marketing efforts can show you which techniques work and which don't.

Once you find people willing to donate to your cause, your efforts are not finished. Successful charities track donation patterns so they can see which donors are the greatest help. Continued cultivation of your family of patrons will keep the contributions coming.

Benefits of Donor Management Software

Tracking all of the information on benefactors and contributions is a big job and more organizations are turning to donor management software to keep it all straight.

The software organizes your contacts, letting you build a profile for each person you meet so you can better evaluate how they can help your efforts. Build your marketing efforts around these profiles and generate reports to see how successful your efforts are. You can spot trends such as an upswing in conversions after attending conferences or following the publication of related stories in the newspaper.

Other reports make it easy to manage contribution sources. Although gratitude should be expressed for even the smallest donation, your largest benefactors should receive extra recognition. If you see donations fall, reports allow you to quickly recognize patterns so you can correct the problems quickly.

It's Not All About the Software

Donor management software improves an organization's ability to develop and preserve donor relationships. However the software is only an organizational tool. Old fashioned human elements are still keys to successful non-profit fundraising.

Organizations that treat donors like ATM machines soon have no donors. Contributors must feel you value them more than their money. Make every supporter feel special. If donors have questions, answer them promptly. If they give you advice, genuinely listen.

Show donors your accomplishments. For some this means detailed financial reports while others want to hear personal stories of your successes and meet the people you help.

If you're not doing so already, host donor appreciation events for your largest contributors. It gives the opportunity to express your gratitude and also allows you to network. Through your existing family of patrons you can find leads to others and expand your funding sources.

Basic business acumen, donor management software and traditional customer service are the core to any successful non-profit organization.