Network for Good transcribed the teleconference I did for them in April, 2008 and turned it into two articles. They're posted as Choosing a Donor Database: Steps to Success and Why You Need a Donor Database. … [Read more...]
Convio Releases “Common Ground” Donor Database
In June I mentioned that Convio had announced the beta release of a donor database it was calling Aikido, built on the SalesForce platform. This is not a new template for SalesForce, but a product built from the ground up. At the time, they said it would be a separate product from their online … [Read more...]
Duplicates in your Database?
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 … [Read more...]
2008 Data Breaches Have Surpassed All of 2007
According to the Identity Theft Resource Center in San Diego, 449 data breaches have been reported as of August 22 2008, compared to 446 in all of 2007. The breaches included consumer data as well as data from nonprofit and educational organizations. Lost and stolen laptops (and other digital … [Read more...]
Getting Fundraisers to Write Contact Reports
Jim Moore of CommUlinks posted a wonderful response to the following question on a mailing list for prospect researchers. He granted me permission to repost it here. Q: Can anyone share with me ways to ensure development officers are submitting contact reports? Or tools that you have provided … [Read more...]
Showcase of Fundraising Innovation & Inspiration (sofii.org)
I've been watching SOFII develop over the past few months, and it's having an amazing growth spurt. It was set up to "provide charitable fundraisers everywhere with an easily accessible archive of the best fundraising creativity from around the world." The quote from George Bernard Shaw on their … [Read more...]
Stop Sending Vacation Replies to Mailing Lists
Anyone who's a member of a listserve has spent the summer deleting vacation replies from list members. Here's my approach to preventing this: Before a vacation I used to manually visit every one of the more than 30 lists I'm on and set my status to No Mail (or unsubscribe … [Read more...]
Cuil search engine isn’t
After testing www.cuil.com I can't figure out what the buzz is about. I like the categorization feature, but that's about it (and clusty does a better job). But the actual search results are disappointing and downright weird. Of course, I searched for my own name. When I don't put quotes around … [Read more...]
Online Donor Cultivation and Stewardship Survey
The Gilbert Center is conducting a survey on how nonprofits are using the Internet to cultivate and take care of their donors. A lot of research about online fundraising focuses on the tactics of the ask. We're trying to broaden the field a bit by researching the topic of online cultivation and … [Read more...]
Rate Your Donor Database
NTEN is conducting another in its series of vendor satisfaction surveys. This time they want your input on donor management systems. Their pitch: Tell us what you love -- and what frustrates, irks, and just generally annoys you -- and we'll compile the results into a handy report, then give it … [Read more...]