Donor Management Software Features
Donor management solutions may include, but are not limited to, the following features:
Dashboards – Many donor management solutions contain dashboard features, which present the user with an easily understandable interface for interacting with the software. The dashboard provides real-time access to all of your information, from donor information to fundraising activity.
Reporting – Certain donor management software offers a reporting feature, which can generate detailed activity reports. Organizations can use these reports to shape donor strategy going forward. You can create a report that pulls donation numbers week by week from the past three years, notice that donations are usually down during a certain week, and then use that information to boost outreach during that period.
Marketing automation – Marketing automation saves time and has the ability to make your organization more efficient by eliminating mistakes in the marketing process. You may utilize a separate marketing automation software, but some robust donor management tools provide access to marketing automation features directly within the application. One can use these features to set up automated thank-you email responses or to gently nudge your donor base when they haven’t contributed in a while. Automating these processes means that you free up time to focus on more value-adding tasks, such as strategy.
Email distribution – Email distribution and mail-merge (the automatic addition of email addresses and personalized emails to expedite the process of sending out tons of marketing material at once) are two features included in the majority of donor management solutions. These allow users to send donor-related emails directly from the application.
Messaging templates – Some donor management solutions may contain email templates so users can easily craft and send acknowledgment emails. These solutions may also contain direct mail templates to help craft and send direct mail messages within the donor management application.
Data integration – Integrating existing data sets, primarily in the form of donor information and past donation history, is important to ensuring a smooth transition to a new donor management system. With quality data integration built in to your new solution, users can be sure that the information they will be relying on is accurate.
Mobile-optimized: – Mobility is increasingly important for software of all types, and donor management is no exception. Software vendors in this category are offering mobile-ready solutions to make accepting donations easier. Certain software offers text-to-give options, through which donors can make donations via text. Removing barriers makes it easier to solicit more donations.
Task management – Donation management at larger nonprofits may require an entire team of employees. These solutions may include task management tools, which schedule and assign tasks to individuals on the team and monitor the status of these tasks. Nonprofits often have fundraising goals and donation deadlines to stick to, so having a tool to organize the team can play a huge role in meeting those deadlines and hitting those goals.
Mass messaging – Donor management software may offer mass text messaging features, allowing organizations to reach out directly to their donor base. The combination of mass messaging features and text-to-give functionalities creates an additional line of communication and an additional donation channel.
Donation pages – Some solutions can create custom donor campaign pages to accompany targeted outreach. These pages streamline the donation process and track activity on the page more closely.
Real-time activity monitor — Using a real-time activity monitor, users can keep track of all donor activity as it occurs. This ensures that your nonprofit is up to date with all donor activity. Changes can be monitored and trigger immediate action to alleviate any issues and ensure a smoothly run donor management process.
Additional Donor Management Features
Prospect research database –
Dashboards – Donor management tools may provide access to a prospect database so you can carry out prospect research more easily. Prospect research is vital to increasing your number of donors, raising additional funds, and hitting donation goals. There is dedicated donor prospect research software, but having those tools within a donor management solution streamlines the entire process. With this feature, users can research potential donors and carry out marketing and outreach tasks all within the same tool.
Custom reporting – Many donor management solutions offer reporting features, but some can create custom report filters so that you can get exactly the data you want in the format best suited to the task. You may be able to automate the reporting process as well, ensuring that you have weekly, auto-generated, custom reports on all of the information that your organization deems vital.
Dashboards – Some software in this category may contain the ability to create online forms. These may include sign-up forms, forms to track donor information changes, and more. Creating forms and distributing forms easily streamlines and standardizes the information collection process, which frees you up to focus on creative tasks
