Krisp Communications

Excel: Why It Isn’t a Donor Database

brian.nospam@nospam.krispcommunications.com (brian) — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 07:45:00 -0500

Excel is a great program. It is perfect for crunching numbers, tracking budgets, and herding gobs of numbers into organized columns and rows in order to easily make sense of them. Unfortunately, too many organizations use Excel to track their most valuable asset – their donors. Here are a few reasons why a donor database is the investment you should make to protect and grow your assets.

Security

Excel spreadsheets are not secure. Stored locally on your computer, it takes only one lightening strike or hard drive failure to erase years of data. Backing up your data regularly? That’s a good start, but not sufficient to protect your data. Security extends further than just not losing your file. What if you miss a column when you sort your database? Years of data may have just become jumbled, and you may not even know it until it is too late to fix. What about access to your donor information? You may be responsible for some of your donors’ most personal information – do other employees have access to the file? Do clients use the same network? Excel does not safeguard against disgruntled employees, thieves or hackers, and does not even track who logged into the file.

Most donor database solutions provide excellent security. Many have an online-only option, where your data is stored on their servers, safely tucked away in a climate-controlled room and backed up regularly. If multiple employees need access to the database, each can be assigned their own username, making it easy to track who logged in and even what changes they made. Donor databases restrict mass changes to files – it is nearly impossible to make a mistake that would delete, jumble, or otherwise contaminate more than a single donor record.

Data Integrity

Excel can’t tell if you use PA or Pennsylvania in a cell. Excel won’t check to be sure you haven’t put the campaign name and donation amount in the wrong columns. There are no prompts to be sure you use the correct envelope salutation. Donor databases make it much easier to be sure the right information gets into the right place in the right format. This is critical to keeping your data “clean” and making sure it is as easy to use as possible in the future.

Data Tracking

Excel allows you to track data in rows and columns. Eventually, you will either have a row for each gift, and multiple entries for a single donor, or you will have really wide rows, with multiple gifts and campaigns, three spots for email addresses because one donor may have that many, and you will spend hours looking for the simplest answers due to the overwhelming amount of data crammed onto a single page.

Donor databases allow you to link records, making it easy to create multiple gift records for a single donor, create relationships between donors (father-son; board member-friend), apply soft credits to accounts (such as matching gifts or tributes), and track as little or as much data as you need for each donor.

Reporting

This is where Excel has some real limitations. How do you figure out your LYBUNTs and SYBUNTs? Sort and re-sort? How many of your donors met your “silver” giving level this year? What is Mr. Smith’s lifetime giving total? How much did this year’s annual appeal raise compared to previous years? Who has pledges outstanding? Donor databases come with a host of standard reports and queries to make reporting and segmenting easy. Additional custom reports are usually easy to create.

CRM or Customer Relationship Management

In business sales, customer relationship management programs like Act! allow sales people to track their correspondence with clients and set follow up reminders. Donor databases combine the features of CRM software with gift tracking. You can keep notes of each contact you make, set reminders, and create and track correspondence, whether it is an appeal letter, a thank you letter, a pledge reminder email, or a phone call. If you tried this in Excel, your spreadsheet would quickly become overwhelming.

Wouldn’t it be nice to send your major donors a birthday card? Too time consuming? What if it took 30 seconds to run a report each month, and you were able to print out a list with names, addresses, and the date of their birthday, and another 15 minutes writing out the cards and mailing them to the major donors on the list. Would you be more inclined to spend time cultivating donors if you could prioritize and organize your tasks?

Bottom Line

Bottom line? Donor databases combine all the features you need to protect your donors’ information and improve your fundraising. Your donor list and giving history is your organization’s most valuable asset, and improving your fundraising is the only way to provide better service to more clients. What is that worth to you?

Social Giving Contest: Big Payout or Big Pain?

brian.nospam@nospam.krispcommunications.com (brian) — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 07:41:00 -0500

A new trend in corporate giving makes it easier for millions of people across the nation to decide where corporate dollars should go through online contests. These social giving contests are seemingly a great opportunity for nonprofits to gain exposure fast and earn money for their organizations.

Large corporations like JPMorgan Chase, Kohl’s and Pepsi encourage the public to vote online for their favorite charity. In turn, the corporation gives away hundreds of thousands of dollars to the winning organization.

Many of the corporations use Facebook to generate votes. For example, the Chase Giving Community created a Facebook page where Facebook users could vote for their favorite charity. Out of the more than 500,000 charities nominated by users, the top 200 were awarded grants ranging from $25,000 to $1 million depending on their final ranking. Over two million people voted to help donate $5 million.

The question is who is getting the bigger payout – the charity or the corporation? Social giving contests are great ways for corporations to gain publicity and they are an opportunity for select nonprofits to receive a large amount financial gift. However, these gifts come with a price. The viral marketing campaign that is created in order to generate the high number of votes needed to win the grant only serves to reinforce the company’s brand. While it can be argued that the campaign does reinforce the companies’ commitment to give back to the community, it can also be argued that the campaign comes at a price to the nonprofit that can’t be taken lightly.

For the 498,000 nonprofits that didn’t win, social giving contests can mean a loss of time and resources that they cannot afford. Even though big corporations and larger nonprofits are seeing positive results, this may not always be the case for smaller charities. Social media contests are exhausting the resources of small, grassroot nonprofits who find the payoff of $25,000 to $1 million grants too hard to resist. These nonprofits work to actively promote themselves online and in the community to essentially win a popularity contest. Large nonprofits have more resources and can dedicate the time needed to participate and compete in social giving contests. Long-time supporters can become weary of constant requests for votes and may eventually become disinterested. If a nonprofit is constantly asking its supporters to vote for the organization, these supporters may ignore future information put out by the nonprofit because it seemed to work harder to promote the contest then the mission it fights for.

Another caveat is that voters’ personal information is not always anonymous. Many corporations, like Chase and Pepsi, request that voters provide contact information before being able to cast a vote which makes the voter a marketing pawn in the name of a good cause.

Social giving contest do not foster long-term relationships. Someone may vote for a nonprofit once and they may never do anything for that organization ever again. Chase boasts on their Facebook page that social giving contests serve as a national platform to promote nonprofits’ missions, help them to attract new supporters, and gain visibility with millions of Chase Community Giving fans. Although some exposure may be gained from the contest, nonprofits need action and continued volunteer and donor support in order to survive. For the most part, social giving contests do not foster these relationships.

Social giving contests give money to organizations that know how to manipulate online contents and media, not necessarily the most worthy charity, and the competitiveness to beat out other well-meaning nonprofits can turn ugly. Some organizations may use deceptive practices in order to win. With an eye on the prize money, nonprofits can quickly lose sight of their values and mission.

When making the decision to pursue social giving contests nonprofits should weigh the pros and cons carefully. From exhausting their own internal resources to fatiguing volunteers with the constant requests of voting, the better choice may be to hold a local fundraiser, launch a new appeal or write additional grant proposals.

Clear Writing - It's the Law

brian.nospam@nospam.krispcommunications.com (kristine) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:16:00 -0500

Have you heard? There is a bill in Congress that would make it mandatory that "Government documents issued to the public must be written clearly..." (H.R. 946: Plain Language Act of 2009). There is also a Senate bill -- S. 574: Plain Writing Act of 2009. While these bills would only apply to government documents, if these bills pass one day we all might all be expected to use proper grammar, punctuation and spelling.

I thought this might be a good time to offer a few suggestions to improve your writing. The first test of good writing: Can it be easily read and understood? Few pieces of writing will persuade anyone to do anything if the reader leaves them on the shelf, tosses them in the recycle bin, or exits the webpage.

•   Be concise. Edit like you mean it. Then remove redundant words like "current" services, "future" plans, "new" innovations. Make each word earn its place.

•   Translate everything from your industry's jargon into plain English. You'll be amazed at how that single act can make a big difference in the clarity and sparkle of your writing.

•   Choose active words. Instead of “The meeting was attended by all staff,” use “The staff attended the meeting.” Active words make your writing more interesting and involve the reader.

•   Get rid of clichés. No one needs to "drill down and get more granular," for example. Here are a few more clichés to avoid: (with English translations): "no brainer" (easy decision), "win-win" (mutually beneficial), "cutting edge" (innovative), and "talk offline" (chat in private).

•   Update your materials. Send website text back to a staff person to update. Rewriting an entire website is a daunting task for one person, but not so much if each person is responsible for only a page or two.

While mandating clear writing will never happen, making it your personal mandate will make your writing more effective.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-946

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-574

Is Your School District Prepared for an Issue Like This?

brian.nospam@nospam.krispcommunications.com (kristine) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 10:33:00 -0500

From NSPRA:

High School Newspaper Unwittingly Runs Ad From Hate Group

An ad in HiLite, a newspaper published by Carmel (Ind.) High School, offered free music downloads but wound up leading people to a racist and anti-Semetic web site run by the hate group Victory Forever. Jim Streisel, MJE, the school's newspaper adviser and a communications teacher, said the school checked the web site but when they couldn't access it, they were told that it was under construction by the person purchasing the ad. Other schools have fallen victim to the same tech-savvy scam, which often includes the set-up of a dummy site to get past the pre-press screening. The school principal issued a statement apologizing for the inadvertent mistake and distancing the school from the views espoused by the hate group. Streisel said the school no longer runs ads that promote web sites that can't be thoroughly examined but cautioned that even a thorough screening may not reveal the nature of the individual or group buying the ad.

Does your school district have a crisis plan and advertising acceptance policy in place to address these types of issues?

Urge PA Lawmakers to Oppose Bill Taxing Charities

brian.nospam@nospam.krispcommunications.com (kristine) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:12:00 -0500

From PANO: On December 7, 2009, PA Senator Wayne Fontana (D-Allegheny) and PA Representative Tim Solobay (D- Washington) plan to introduce legislation in both the State Senate and State House to impose partial property taxes on Pennsylvania's charities.

This new bill would amend the State's Purely Public Charities Act (Act 55 of 1997) to allow municipalities the option of imposing "Essential Services Fees" on real estate owned by charities. The tax would be based on the square footage of the property (most likely a fee of up to $100 per 1,000 square feet of tax exempt property, with the first 5,000 square feet exempt.) Municipalities that choose NOT to exercise their "local option" may still impose "voluntary" agreements on charities for payments in-lieu of taxes. Voluntary agreements are currently permissible under Act 55. *This bill is based on a 2007 bill (SB1328) that died in committee.

This bill poses a major problem for thousands of 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations in Pennsylvania that own property or will acquire property to further their charitable mission. The reality is that many nonprofits are already contributing to their local municipalities through "voluntary" payments-in-lieu of taxes or fair share agreements. A 2009 State Legislative Budget and Finance Committee (LB&FC) study found that nonprofit hospitals and public and private universities are already substantially contributing to their local municipalities. The same study found that the vast majority of tax-exempt property in Pennsylvania is actually held by government and religious organizations.

Taxing charities is just wrong-headed. It diverts precious charitable resources at a time when the need is greatest. It also fails to consider the value of nonprofit services to the communities they serve.

The Pennsylvania Association of Nonprofit Organizations (PANO) encourages you to contact your State Representative and State Senator. Urge them to NOT CO-SPONSOR the Fontana/Solobay bill to tax charities. Follow this link: http://capwiz.com/pano/issues/alert/?alertid=14390276.

Budget Impasse Affects All

brian.nospam@nospam.krispcommunications.com (brian) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 08:43:00 -0500

Pennsylvania’s budget impasse is making the news as often these days, but the stalemate goes on in Harrisburg. Hidden from view (until now) are the affects of the budget impasse on hundreds of nonprofits and social service agencies and their clients throughout the state. As of the end of August, a United Way of Pennsylvania survey showed that over $114 million was owed to these agencies for services already delivered. Among other results from the survey of nearly 600 area nonprofits:

· Almost one-third (31%) of the agencies responding reported that they had no sources of money remaining to help them through this crisis period.

· One-third (33%) of the agencies responding reported that they had drawn funds from credit lines or other loans in order to continue delivering services.

· 45% of the agencies responding report that lack of government reimbursement for services has hindered their ability to provide regular paychecks to their employees.

· 27% of agencies responding reported that they had already initiated staff layoffs, and another 20% indicated that they would have to do so if reimbursements are not received by September 30th.

· Half of the agencies responding reported falling behind in payments to vendors.

· Only 27% of agencies reported that the lack of reimbursement has not yet impacted their ability to deliver services.

Nonprofits make up approximately 15% of the Pennsylvania economy. The lack of funds coming from the state is affecting their ability to provide vital services, pay their mortgages, and pay vendors like us.

Area agencies recently held a rally in Media to draw attention to the very real impact of the stalemate. Here are links to some of the coverage we helped generate for the event:

Pennsylvania Impasse Hits Schools, Services

Wall Street Journal - Kris Maher

Nonprofits call on state to end impasse

Philadelphia Gay News - Jen Colletta

Pa. Budget Crisis Has Area Non-Profits on Brink of Collapse

KYW1060.com - Steve Tawa

Service agencies in crisis over Pa. budget impasse

Philadelphia Inquirer - Joelle Farrell, Amy Worden

Social service agencies protest budget deadlock

Delaware County Daily Times - Vicky Thomas - ‎

Coalition plans rally at courthouse

Delaware County Daily Times - ‎Aug 26, 2009‎

Nonprofits skipping payments, cutting staff because of Pa. budget ...

Bizjournals.com - Peter Key

Pennsylvanian Legislative Services

http://www.ctbpls.com/www/PA/library/2009/2009082677.HTM

Pennsylvania Budget Stalemate Lead Non-profits to Rally

PRLog.Org (press release) - ‎Aug 24, 2009‎

http://www.prlog.org/10320138-pennsylvania-budget-stalemate-lead-nonprofits-to-rally.html

Southeastern PA Nonprofit Groups Rally for a Fair and Equitable Budget

PR Newswire (press release) - ‎Aug 26, 2009‎

If we missed a deadline by months due to disagreements within our agency, the client would fire us. Who is going to fire Harrisburg?

The Potential Return of the H1N1 Virus

brian.nospam@nospam.krispcommunications.com (nicole) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:03:00 -0500

The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) held a joint briefing earlier this summer to discuss the return of both the H1N1 Virus and students this fall. The goal of the meeting was to help school officials better prepare and communicate the potential return of the H1N1 Virus. Here are some of the key takeaway items that I found useful for school districts:

· Data collection regarding schools reporting closures and projected re-openings to determine how schools can effectively determine the best course of action depending on the severity of the pandemic.

· The CDC and DOE are working together in writing and distributing a form that can be emailed, faxed, or filled out online by any school employee or local health organization in order to increase percentage of schools communicating and responding to the H1N1 Virus.

· The CDC and DOE encourages school districts to be proactive in planning for the potential return of the H1N1 Virus. Do you have a plan in place for the new school year?

· To effectively reduce transmission among students, ensure your students are utilizing healthy hygienic habits (washing hands, using tissues…) Remind parents of these healthy habits by including information on the website or through a PTO/PTA newsletter.

· If there is a school closure, school districts must stress that parents keep their children home as much as possible to avoid the spread of the H1N1 Virus.

· There is no uniform response when communicating concerns about the H1N1 Virus. Evaluate the pandemic on a case-by-case basis in order to effectively communicate to your public.

Below are several resources that I found will help you to better understand the H1N1 Virus in order for your school district to successfully communicate to its public. There are also some great examples of plans and planning efforts.

Department of Education’s H1N1 Virus website

Centers for Disease Control’s H1N1 Virus website

Government’s pandemic flu websiteWebinar on pandemic flu

Assessment of states’ operational plans to combat pandemic influenza

Examples of plans and planning efforts

Can I Afford This?

brian.nospam@nospam.krispcommunications.com (kristine) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 08:57:00 -0500

We are often asked “How can my organization afford a public relations/fund development program when we can barely support the services to our clients?” The correct answer is that you can’t afford not to! This may seem preposterous to you, but ask yourself – Would I be more willing to write a check to an organization that I receive regular updates from, and about which I see positive news stories regularly, or one that just sends me an appeal letter every year?

In these times of economic uncertainty, nonprofits must protect the resources they have already invested in their communication and fund development programs. On the surface your board may see your organization’s public relations program as a flashy newsletter or your fund development program as a pricey mailing. However, if both programs are based on research – on knowing what your organization’s identified publics expect – these tactics provide for ongoing communication between your nonprofit and its publics, and this ongoing communication can result in increased donations, more volunteers, and improved dialogue with the community your organization serves.

Taking proactive steps to integrate or update a public relations and fund development program into your nonprofit begins with asking tough questions. But that is only the beginning. Making changes are the vital next steps. Here are some tips you might find helpful:

Be honest with yourself. Be open and willing to accept things that you may not want to hear.

Evaluate the return on your investments. Make sure you know what you are trying to accomplish with each project and find out if you did in fact accomplish that goal. For example, special events are famous for being a drain on staff, even if a volunteer committee steps up to handle planning.

Don’t reinvent the wheel. Find out what colleagues at other nonprofits are doing. It is going to take collaboration and creative thinking to set yourself apart during today’s tough economic times.

And remember – it doesn’t need to be expensive! Find people to work with who understand your budget and can offer suggestions of ways to keep your costs down.

50 Ways to Increase Revenue

brian.nospam@nospam.krispcommunications.com (brian) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 07:34:00 -0500

There is a good article in FundRaising Success magazine this month (click here to read the full article) listing 50 ways to increase giving revenue. While targeted mainly at large nonprofits that run serious direct mail programs, there are some ideas that carry over. While most of the organizations that we work with don't have a "control package" (the direct mail package that has the best response rate, and against which all new packages are measured), all of our clients can still compare one mailing against the next. Did last year's letter pull better than this year's? What did we do differently?

You may be able to find a few ideas in this article that will work for your organization - don't miss the receipt and thank you sections for solid ideas that are inexpensive to implement and proven to increase revenue. All too often we are too shy to ask for additional gifts. We are so thankful for a gift that we forget that donors are giving because they want to - they believe in your mission and are willing to support your work. Giving them additional opportunities to send a gift, or different ways to support your oganization (planned giving, for example) will not turn them off from giving. This is proven time and time again at major nonprofits that run large and successful direct mail progams.

All too often, when revenue drops, organizations begin to add new fundraising programs - raffles, events, and more. Avoid the temptation to overburden your staff with new programs, and begin instead with the low-hanging fruit, improving your existing programs.

Krisp Communications Welcomes Summer Intern

brian.nospam@nospam.krispcommunications.com (brian) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:25:00 -0500

Kristin Ford is thrilled to join the Krisp Communications Team as a summer intern. “I am so excited to be working this summer with nonprofits and learning so much about public relations and grant writing through this internship,” Kristin said. “Learning from such a great team is an amazing opportunity that will help me with the rest of my college career and beyond.”

Kristin is entering her junior year at The Pennsylvania State University, majoring in English with a publishing emphasis and a business minor. She also serves as the literary editor for La Vie, the university’s award winning yearbook, and is actively involved in the marketing and fundraising committees for Penn State’s premier student-run theatre organization.

Kristin hopes in the future to pursue a career in writing and editing, preferably somewhere far warmer than Pennsylvania. She has a real passion for traveling, having journeyed to Africa, South America, and all over Europe. She hopes that this will one day lead her to find work all over the world. Kristin plans to attend graduate school to obtain a master’s degree in publishing.