SupportingAdvancement.com has published the results of their 2008 survey on how nonprofits are handling corporate matching gifts. The responses came primarily from post-secondary schools, but also included elementary schools, healthcare, museums, gardens, performing arts, and service organizations. The findings included:

Although 99% of respondents accept matching gifts, only 67% actively ask individual donors [...]

Tags: Advancement Services, Fundraising

The flip side to my list of donor databases would be a list of systems that no longer exist. This does not mean that these systems are no longer in use, just that they’re no longer being sold or supported (I recently met someone who still uses FundMaster, which hasn’t been sold since at [...]

Tags: Advancement Services, Donor Databases, Fundraising

I thought it might be useful to compile a list of all of the commercial donor databases I’m aware of. This list came from my head, my bookmarks, and lists compiled by NTEN and Idealware for their donor management software surveys. (Caveat: I’m not certain all of these are actually donor databases). The list [...]

Tags: Advancement Services, Donor Databases, Fundraising

“After people, data is your most important asset.” — John Kenyon

Left unattended, databases will turn into piles of mush. Therefore, develop data entry policies and procedures, and train everyone who enters data.
Excel is not a database, and is one of the leading causes of dirty data. It is difficult to enforce data entry [...]

Tags: Advancement Services, Databases

NTEN has released the results of its donor management software customer satisfaction survey. Over 1,000 respondents rated a variety of systems, including custom databases.

The report focuses on 15 systems that each received 10 or more responses. (The five that received the most responses were The Raiser’s Edge, OnDeposit, GiftWorks, CiviCRM, and eTapestry.) Both GiftWorks and [...]

Tags: Advancement Services, Donor Databases, Fundraising

I just returned from Chicago, where I attended (and spoke at) the first annual conference of the Association of Advancement Services Professionals (AASP).  AASP describes itself as “an international organization for individuals interested in the profession of advancement services.”  Advancement Services staff (aka Development Services, Development Operations, Advancement Operations) generally support fundraising , membership, [...]

Tags: Advancement Services

The Association of Advancement Services Professionals was launched just over a year ago. Their first conference and annual membership meeting will take place November 6 - 7, 2008 at the Holiday Inn Chicago Mart Plaza. Information is at http://advserv.org/Default.aspx?pageId=81835&eventId=7565&EventViewMode=2

I will be speaking on two panels: “Meeting the Future of Fund Raising” and “Systems Strategies [...]

Tags: Advancement Services

There’s been a series of discussions on the FUNDSVCS and PRSPCT-L lists about dealing with duplicates in a database, and preventing new dupes from being created. Melissa Graves from The Village for Families and Children suggested the following routine steps:

A) Search for a matching record before creating any new record. Some databases will pop up [...]

Tags: Advancement Services, Databases