Leverage Technology for Donor Management | Connect trends, statistics, AI, data, and privacy

Erin Booker

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August 19, 2024

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7 minutes

Nonprofit Trends

How To Nonprofit

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What do nonprofit technology and effective donor management have in common? Well, not a heck of a lot on the surface; they're like planets that rotate in the same orbit and whose gravitational pulls affect each other's tides. But get those planets moving in sync, and suddenly things look a lot different.

Today, we're going to look at how you can take the technology at your disposal and turn it into an out-of-this-world donor management strategy.

The benefits of integrating technology into donor management

As the landscape of philanthropy evolves, integrating technology into fundraising can positively affect donor engagement and maximize donations. Fundraising and donor management technology has become an essential combo for nonprofit organizations that aim to improve fundraising efforts, enhance donor relationships, and ensure their prospective donors' data privacy.

Increased donor engagement

Increasing donor engagement frequently is the first drop that leads to a ripple of increasing donations, which leads to increasing impact. And if technology can set off a rainstorm, we're looking at a hurricane of world change.

Higher donation amounts

This is more than a magic trick—and raising average donation amounts takes more than waving a magic wand. Increasing donation dollars through donor relationship management takes an eye for data analysis... or just a tech-savvy solution that shows you when and how to approach the sensitive donors.

Improved donor retention

And once you've got a donor pegged, knowing when and how they like to give, and how much they can commit, donor retention goes up. Especially when you can upgrade one-time donors to recurring online donations.

Supercharged growth

Like we said, it's a ripple effect, and tech-backed donor management tools are essentially a storm a-brewin'. Get the momentum going and growth will be up and to the right in a shade of the darkest black.

Increased ROI

Not only do your donations go up with efficient tech gift tools, but your costs go down. As you count up the investment you've put into your donor management strategy, don't forget to factor in the time savings—you'll see your ROI go up just as fast as that nonprofit profit.

Increased administrative efficiency

This one should feel just as amazing as all the impact you make: less time doing boring work. With fundraising and nonprofit CRM software that does all the ticky-tacky data collection, you'll be freed up to do the work that actually makes a difference.

What should your donor management tech stack include?

Funraise's nonprofit CRM is the key to a donor management tech stack that results in time saved, money raised, and impact created. Other pieces crucial to the fundraising tech stack puzzle are data security precautions, donation data dashboards, and automated tasks. Funraise's donor CRM has all that and more.

We'll say it again. Your donor management system should include...

Funraise.

But why? What's so great about Funraise's technology? Let's take a look at what makes a great donor management tech stack.

Must-have features for donor management tech stacks

To start you off, here are the features you need to leverage technology, trends, stastics, AI, and privacy for donor management:

Mobile-friendly cloud connection
Donor data privacy
Custom reports and dashboards
Machine learning and AI
Data migration
Automated tasks

Now that you know what you're looking for, where can you find it all? Funraise has all of these features, plus lots more bells and whistles.

Mobile-friendly cloud connections

Tracking and logging donor interactions consistently is difficult when you're tied to a spreadsheet or a computer. But when you can update your donor database anytime, anywhere, or—even better—trust your fundraising software to update automatically on its own... that's leveraging technology for donor management.

Donor data privacy and cybersecurity

It seems like every day our inboxes see yet another notification that our personal information has been compromised. Not only are hacker-fraudsters getting smarter, our tools aren't holding up to their attacks. Your fundraising software and nonprofit CRM have to shield your donors. Like, yesterday.

Customizable reports and dashboards

When you're trying to decide how to approach next year's fundraising strategy, you've got to look at how your past fundraising campaigns performed. Leveraging donor analytics and data-driven, actionable insights with artificial intelligence is the #1 most effective way to build successful fundraising strategies that engage donors, raise money, and spread awareness.

Machine learning

One of our favorite uses of AI is machine learning because it helps nonprofits continuously optimize the donor experience. CRM usage allows you to act on donor behavior: when they give, the type of device they use, how much they give, which buttons they click, whether they've explored being a recurring donor, and more. Using machine learning, you can ask the right donor for the right amount at the right time.

Data migration

Once you choose a fundraising software and a donor CRM, it's time to move all your data into its new home! Migrating data isn't for the faint of heart, so ask your software sales and support team before choosing a partner.

Once the migration is done, the key is governing your donor data effectively, which means making sure that the right information is collected in the right fields and stays up-to-date. See how Funraise treats your data.

Automated Tasks

Are you like us? Need a to-do list to make sure you're not dropping the ball on anything? If so, automated tasks are the answer. If you're using a fundraising software donor CRM combo like Funraise, you can assign donor portfolios to staff members and create tasks to be fulfilled based on fundraising activity.

Why your donor management tech stack needs Funraise

Funraise has all the essential donor management tech tools, plus more. And every bit of every feature in every corner of Funraise is continually polished, upgraded, and attended to. Take a look at why Funraise is the best of the best when it comes to donor management and innovation.

Fundraising Intelligence

Fundraising Intelligence is Funraise's reporting and dashboard feature, crammed chock full of powerful data visualizations and a ton of AI applications that make Funraise customers' data analysis, report building, and forecasting much more accurate and efficient.

When compared with non-profit organizations who don’t use Fundraising Intelligence (yet), organizations who use Fundraising Intelligence:

Raise 7x more online annually on average
Grow recurring revenue 1.5x faster year over year on average, and...
As of April, organizations with Fundraising Intelligence have an average of 12% higher donor retention rates in 2024

Raise 7x more online annually on average, Grow recurring revenue 1.5x faster year over year on average, and...As of April, organizations with Fundraising Intelligence have an average of 12% higher donor retention rates in 2024

AppealAI

AppealAI is a powerful generative AI tool that generates more effective fundraising appeals, more quickly. Essentially, it's a nonprofit fundraising appeals AI generator. When the Funraise user inputs pre-programmed prompts, AppealAI spits out a fundraising appeal that resonates with potential donors.

Growth Stats

Did you know that charitable organizations using Funraise grow online revenue 73% year-over-year on average? 3x faster than the industry benchmark?

It's true, and it's also something that your nonprofit can achieve—by leveraging technology to fuel your donor management.

Integrations

Once you get your hands on technology and you see the effect it can have, you'll want more, More, MORE!!1! And lucky you, if you've got Funraise, you've got access to the best tech tools available, like QuickBooks, Salesforce, HubSpot, Stripe, and lots, lots more.

Tips to using tech in your donor management strategy

It's time for tech tips! Your donor management strategy relies on a lot of things, and to keep all those moving parts rotating, sliding, clicking, and clacking, you've got to stay on top of your game. Here are some of our favorite ways to take a donor management strategy from A-OK to A++.

Get realistic

First and foremost, get your expectations in line with reality. If you rely on the fact that your social media post is gonna go viral, you'll likely be sorely mistaken. Keep your feet on the ground and your fundraising goals realistic, and you'll be able to effectively use your chosen technology.

Hyperpersonalize donor communications

Yep, it's slick when you get a marketing email that has your name in it. And even slicker when you get one naming your city or alma mater. But we can move past just variable fields into a hyper personalized communication strategy (text, email, phone call), pets, time or date of correspondence, event attendance... really, the sky's the limit.

Don't forget the emotion

Just because we're talking about technology doesn't mean that we can't inject some emotion into the mix. It's not all robots and aliens (yes, it's aliens), so don't be afraid to appeal to your donors in the way you know they respond to.

Automate as much as possible

Automation is like our favorite thing! It's like having an assistant to do the most boring-est tasks for you and to keep you on track so you can do the fun work, the donor engagement, the creative stuff. Sit down, schedule it out, and reap the rewards!

Keep your data clean

We're talking about donor management, so you know there are donor databases involved. And if your information feeds into the wrong fields or creates duplicates or is out of date? Your fundraising strategy will be off, your communications and appeals will be directed to the wrong people in the wrong way, and your donors will be impacted in a negative way.

Connect everything

Oh yeah, hook it allll up! Let's integrate payment methods with the online donation forms with the donor CRM with the marcom platform with the social networks, and then let's fill in the cracks with other platforms, marketing tools, and AI.

5 Challenges for nonprofits setting up a tech stack

Safety and Compliance
Budgets
Buy-in
Lack of technical expertise
Ethics, equity, and environmental concerns

1. Safety and compliance

Staying up to date on safety procedures and protocols, while essential, can be a difficult task. Using a technology partner that's as concerned with privacy as you are will help your nonprofit tackle the task. Here are four things to keep on your digital safety to-do list:

Understand relevant privacy regulations
Provide informed consent
Don't share proprietary information
Update your individual donor privacy policies regularly

2. Budgets and resources

Technology sounds expen$ive, right? Before dismissing nonprofit donor management software outright, consider the opportunity cost—the dollars-and-cents cost of the thing you did not do. Additionally, take into account the resources that you save by having technology take on administrative tasks.

And if you think that you don't have the resources to implement these analytics tools, think again—technology these days (like Funraise), is designed for easy, organization-wide implementation.

3. Stakeholder and team buy-in

It can be tough to get your leadership to say yea to a bevvy of software, so make your case carefully and thoroughly. Keep it simple and show how impact can grow with a few simple changes to your nonprofit donor management software.

4. Lack of technical expertise

It's the old cycle: In order to get a job, you've got to have experience. In order to get experience, you've got to get a job. Attempts to incorporate technology into a fundraising strategy can be similar: You need the technology to free up time, but you need time to decide on a platform and onboard. Trust the process and your fundraising team.

5. Ethics, equity, and environmental concerns

Technology, and AI specifically, has so many land mines. Before putting all your donor management platform eggs in one technology basket, write out an AI policy, decide on your will-not-cross boundaries, and ensure you have a way to identify unconscious bias.

Here are a few of the concerns being scrutinized by technos in-the-know.

Environment effects and energy consumption
Baked-in biases
Transparency
Donor autonomy
Accountability

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Effective donor management tech stack FAQ

How to get started with nonprofit AI tools?

Getting started with nonprofit AI tools can enhance your organization’s donor management process, improve engagement, and streamline operations. Deciding on your first fundraising tool is the best way to dip your toes into fundraising technology—and Funraise is a perfect first step. Once you've got that piece, the rest of the puzzle will fall into place.

How does AI power nonprofit fundraising?

In the rapidly evolving landscape of nonprofit fundraising, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative force. By harnessing advanced data analytics, machine learning algorithms, and predictive modeling, nonprofits can enhance their donor management software strategies, increase engagement, and ultimately drive higher contributions. Try AppealAI for a taste of nonprofit fundraising AI.

Why should nonprofits consider using AI?

Nonprofits and AI go together like peanut butter and pickles—it's a dynamite combo that you wouldn't expect. It's also pretty subjective. But nonprofits should consider using AI, machine learning, and related technology because in the right hands, it can be a powerful way to let your donor base know the role of their investment in impact.

How do you manage donors using technology?

Managing current donors effectively is crucial for non-profits and organizations reliant on donations. Leveraging technology can significantly enhance donor management solutions, allowing organizations to streamline processes, improve engagement, and ensure compliance with privacy regulations. Organizations can manage monthly donors using technology while connecting key trends, fundraising statistics, AI advancements, data utilization, and privacy considerations.