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The Walk the Walk Foundation needed donation management software to complement its QuickBooks accounting software. “We knew that we had a challenge to track, maintain, and report donations across our three mission programs,” says Director Stan Wood. The three programs are Footprints, Footsteps and Pathfinder—all with the mission of providing professional assessments and educational guidance to youth, grants and scholarships, and assisting with the community development needs of people in Maryland, West Virginia, and surrounding areas.

The software must be easy enough for volunteers to use, yet secure enough to bar access to the foundation’s finances. Searching QuickBooks-compatible applications, Stan discovered and downloaded GiftWorks, and he and his accountant reviewed it. The accountant gave GiftWorks high marks, and Stan liked its price, interface, and compatibility with QuickBooks.

“Being able to enter donor and donation information directly into GiftWorks and then transfer the data to QuickBooks is a huge time savings. Entering data only one time into both applications reduces data entry time by 50 to 80 percent!” reports Stan. “And GiftWorks supports bulk imports, which saves more time.”

Another issue for Walk the Walk was allowing volunteers to manage administrative tasks in GiftWorks without gaining access to financial information in QuickBooks.

“We saved money purchasing GiftWorks and we will save money each year as we won’t need to buy the costly upgrades of other software applications.” Woods also calculates that Walk the Walk will eliminate about $2000 per year in staffing costs. They won’t need to recruit additional volunteers or hire additional staff to maintain their donor data.

Annual financial audits are expected with some funding sources. “Having a QuickBooks-compatible software solution helps us make sure our accounting records are bulletproof.”

Getting off to a good start by finding QuickBooks compatible-software in GiftWorks builds confidence in a new foundation’s ability to meet high expectations.

www.wtwf.org