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July 2008 |
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Featured in this issue:
GiftWorks Premium--It's Here!
Also In This Issue:
GiftWorks Premium: It's Here!
Who wants the Premium version of GiftWorks?
It's not necessarily a "larger" nonprofit (larger in number of donors, dollars raised, etc.). It's a nonprofit whose information management requirements go beyond what GiftWorks 2008 Standard offers. To meet these requirements and market demands, the GiftWorks Product Development Team created GiftWorks Premium.
Director of GiftWorks Development Steve Fafel notes: "Just as nonprofits are constantly growing more savvy and making more demands for technology, we are committed to providing a constant flow of additional features and functionality, while still maintaining the values we started with. Engaging with customers on beta versions of new products, on surveys, and in conversation--we software developers are excited about the new offerings ahead for GiftWorks."  Premium includes everything in GiftWorks 2008 Standard, plus several additional enhancements.For example, some potential GiftWorks users required more advanced security protection than GiftWorks provided. Premium now allows them to customize the level of GiftWorks access for each user. As an example, the GiftWorks administrator can determine whether a user can add or edit donors, or whether she can view donation information or not. Other potential GiftWorks users had data requirements that could not be met by the original GiftWorks. For increased flexibility for grant management, prospect tracking, and other functions, users needed more fields, and more customizable fields. Now, GiftWorks 2008 Premium has 110 custom fields available - 55 for donors and 55 for donations, making it possible to track just about anything!
Still other GiftWorks users needed the software to perform certain tasks such as automated seasonal address management. Now the person who was manually switching from summer addresses to winter addresses each time she mailed can simply specify the dates of the seasonal address and GiftWorks will automatically change the addresses for mailings sent in those date ranges.
by Curtis Chang, Consulting Within Reach
Many resource-constrained organizations (read: nonprofits) constantly wrestle with questions such as:
Each situation is, of course, unique. But economists have noted that people rarely make rational cost-benefit decisions. To improve your decision making, take a look at three often-missed cost measurements economists use. "Transaction Costs" are the costs incurred not by the (new) product itself, but by other costs required in making the change. When deciding whether to upgrade software, and wanting the new features, you forget that suddenly the old printer might be incompatible; the old system's macros may have to be recreated; and staff time (and temper) will be consumed by clicking on Help constantly. "Opportunity Costs," on the other hand, are incurred by NOT making a change. A nonprofit leader may decide that his tight budget means he just cannot afford a more sophisticated marketing plan. By refusing to spend money for a plan, he incurs the cost of not tapping a whole new class of potential donors. The true cost of his decision has to account for this loss of opportunity. "Sunk Costs" are what you have already spent on a product (and will not be recovered regardless of your action). With my old car, I kept forgetting this principle: "But I've already spent $1500 in repairs," I'd think. "I would be crazy not to spend another $500 to keep her going." An economic consultant would remind me that the $1500 amount is already spent: it is "sunk" and I'm not getting it back, regardless of whether I spend any more money. The decision should be made on whether the car is still worth $500. Resource-constrained organizations may not realize that keeping that inadequate copier, donor database software, web site, or brochure (which cost so much out of their limited budgets) means devoting more resources towards making the existing situation work than is rationally justified. In addition, no one wants to acknowledge that they (or others) made bad purchases or decisions. But failing to recognize this blind spot leads one to throw good money after bad. And who can afford that? Resources aside, not every opportunity to upgrade should be taken. To paraphrase an old baseball saying about player trades, some of the best projects were the ones we never did. If your organization is facing some critical decisions, think through the examples here and consider calling upon outside perspective and analytical tools to lead you to a right decision in the long run. Sometimes the only way out of one's scarcity is to spend more resources. Union County Humane Society, Ohio
In each issue we share the story of a GiftWorks user. Featured in this issue is Union County Humane Society in Ohio whose mission is to connect people with animals and enrich lives.
Running a humane society is no easy task. Like many nonprofit leaders, Rachel Finney, Executive Director of Union County Humane Society, wears many hats: administrator, fundraiser, supervisor, finance officer, and more. UCHS has only one other full-time employee, the Animal Care Supervisor, and twelve part-time employees. In her view, "people who work in nonprofits are always going above and beyond for their cause and they operate with so few resources available to them."
The main features she was looking for in a software package at the time were customizability, user-friendly operation, and ease of importing her existing data. To her surprise, Rachel was able to do the import herself in minutes. "Phenomenal!" she says. Now that she's been working with GiftWorks for two years, she really appreciates the value of having all of her information in one place. In the past, she used to compile data from four spreadsheets to generate reports for monthly board meetings. Now she runs one SmartList. Formerly, doing a mailing was a nightmare, sorting and unduping from multiple worksheets. Catching the overlaps of Terry/Terri/Teresa and PO Box vs Post Office Box took half a day. Now it takes minutes! "Finally a software company is thinking of me and others like me-the directors of a small organizations. This product enables us to get past the paperwork and concentrate on our real work, our missions!" |
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Steve Fafel
Curtis Chang
