Tips for Choosing Software to Fit Your Budget and Programs

2. Is it a struggle to keep on top of program or donor
information?
Are you wasting postage and effort mailing to your
entire list rather than tailoring requests to targeted
segments?
Is volunteer management getting unwieldy as
programs grow?
Are you confident you are finding matching funds?
Are missing opportunities because it is difficult to
find the right information quickly?
Is it difficult to determine how many dollars are
generated from each dollar spent?

3. Is your total cost of ownership too high?
Expensive upgrade costs to stay with a particular
system?
Annual fees on modules or seats you bought buy
don’t need or use?
Can’t afford raining costs for turnover?
Are you paying for features that you don’t need?
tabs for detailed data, that remain empty and
unused?
No staff resources or time to find and enter that data
to use in the system?

4. Is your software too complex for staff resources?
Does it take more than 15 minutes to find and
format data into a report for?

5. A database of current donor and prospect information
helps development staff stay more organized and
informed. It provides them with tools to create and
measure better targeted campaigns which facilitates
more successful response rates, and, ultimately, more
income.

6. Identify demographic groups for tailoring gift or
invitations to increase likelihood of response
Quickly identify donations that qualify for matching
corporate gifts
Automatically track grant or proposal timelines to
win and manage more grants
Tracking uncollected pledges and increasing pledge
fulfillment
Creating quality reports that help you project your
success to future donors

7. A good system can help reduce costs by:
Targeting communications to eliminate extra
postage and reduce duplicates
Preserving budget resources by identifying
unsuccessful campaigns quickly
Simplifying management of special events
and controlling vendor costs

8. A system can help you save time by:
Trimming the time previously required to
plan and administer programs
Simplifying administrative tasks such as
database management
Speeding up data entry, report generation,
campaign tracking and analysis
Decreasing the time currently required for
donor research

9. Step 1: Organizational Inventory
◦ Assess Program needs
◦ Inventory technology
◦ Examine your budget
Step 2: Develop Features Priority List
Step 3: Evaluate Software and Vendors
This process will help clarify the most basic features
and performance priorities required of your fundraising
software and help your software truly fit your needs.

10. What current development items need support?
◦ Do you do seminars with different tracks or just events?
◦ Do you need to manage membership fees and levels?
◦ Do you manage planned giving or endowments?
◦ Do you have volunteer programs?
What do you want to add in 3-5 years?
◦ Your software should support your growth affordably.
Identify and rank your program goals, needs and wants.

11. Inventory your existing technology…
Network
◦ Stand-alone workstations, or a network?
Hardware
◦ List users desktops’ RAM, CPU speed, storage capacity.
Software
◦ What is your operating system?
◦ What software do you use today that will need to work directly with
your fundraising solution?

12. Budgeting for a Fundraising Solution
$1,500 and under
◦ Basic Features, and Application Service Providers (ASPs)
$1,500 to $7,500
◦ Fully networkable, Full basic fundraising features
$7,500 to $15,000
◦ Specialized needs like membership or volunteer management, tributes,
endowment management…
$15,000 and up
◦ Customized, proprietary systems for large organizations

13. Remember, your budget for new software will have to
include…
◦ Software license
◦ Additional user licenses
◦ Data conversion and consulting
◦ Staff training
◦ Annual technical support and maintenance
◦ Possibly additional hardware to support the new solution
Understand associated costs in relation to your budget for all
these areas before you purchase the software!

14. To help you prioritize your software features search,
consider:
◦ What activities that you engage in hourly or daily?
◦ What activities use up too much staff time?
◦ What programs do you rely on most?
◦ What data is critical to your programs and your reporting?
Example: If corporate gifts are more critical to your budget than
charity events, detailed event management features will fall lower
on your priority list.

15. Ranked Features, an example:
◦ Contact management and donor profiles (Must Have)
◦ Gift and pledge tracking features (Must Have)
◦ Built in email or other communication tools (Helpful extra, not
necessary)
◦ Event management functionality (Not critical)
◦ Reporting tools (Must Have)
◦ Volunteer Management (No Need )
Upfront clarity on your priorities will help you stay clear about
your needs as you evaluate different software options.

16. Requesting a Demonstration
◦ Self-running vs. live
◦ Self-evaluation copies
◦ Ask for a local reference and see it in action!
Be sure to ask precisely what is being shown in a demo: Is the product
being shown the basic core product, or does it include all extra-cost
modules that you may not afford? Make sure you will have the same
functionality that you see!

17. What to ask a reference…
◦ How long have they used the program?
◦ Did they examine other software choices?
◦ What were their real costs, such as consulting—any surprises?
◦ Was the training adequate and affordable?
◦ How is the technical support currently?
◦ Would they buy it again?

18. Talking to the Software Consultant
◦ What are the training options and costs?
◦ Are there any guarantees?
◦ Is support available online, by email or other means?
◦ What is total cost to get up and running?
◦ What is the level of experience with nonprofit organizations and
solutions in the support team?

19. Know your organization’s needs
Understand all costs overtime
Research your options
Choose software that fits!

20. Presented By:
W. Andrew Powell
Partner
(703) 836-1350
apowell@cpas4you.com