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May 2012
Constituent Relationship Management systems allow you to track a 360 degree view of all your interactions with constituents. What’s more, all the available options—including Salesforce.com, CiviCRM, SugarCRM and Microsoft Dynamics CRM—are relatively inexpensive for nonprofits, or even free. Sounds ideal, right?
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May 2012
Many organizations question the security of information kept in the cloud. The internet can be a dangerous place for data, but no more so than your own computer, where your data faces many of the same threats—in fact, a good cloud storage vendor is likely to protect your data better than you’d reasonably be able to do on your own. With a little planning, it’s possible to take advantage of the benefits offered by the cloud while making sure your organization’s data is as safe as is practically possible.
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April 2012
How do you choose software for your nonprofit? With so many different types of software available, it’s difficult to even know what’s available, let alone what’s best for your organization’s particular needs. That’s why we created the Idealware Field Guide to Software for Nonprofits. This handy reference covers all the different types of software that might be useful to you—and we just updated it for 2012.
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Laura S. Quinn, Idealware and Amy Wagner, MAP For Nonprofits,
March 2012
Many nonprofits think of innovation as a luxury they can’t afford. Staff time and budgets are limited, and improving the way they use technology seems out of reach. But technology can offer straightforward, inexpensive means of providing higher quality services, and create numerous opportunities to do more with less—even in our current economic climate. Which makes innovation something organizations can no longer afford not to embrace.
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February 2012
You want a donor database that will provide clean data, solid reports, and happy staff, but the software itself is only half the story. How do you choose the right system, and how do you maximize its capabilities? Fundraising technology consultant Robert Weiner walks through 10 common mistakes that get in the way of selecting the right database—and using it properly.
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January 2012
The Consumers Guide to Integrated Software for Community Foundations looks at the features and processes used by five different integrated software solutions to help community foundations manage funds, track grants throughout their life cycles, solicit donations, provide online support for donor advised funds, and tracking accounting data.
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December 2011
Since most organizations don’t track just one type of constituent, the idea of a single database for all of them—donors, volunteers, clients, email subscribers, advocates and everyone else—is something of a holy grail. The ability to easily see how all your constituents interact with your organization, and with each other, makes for an attractive, ideal vision of what a database should be.
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December 2011
Since most organizations don’t track just one type of constituent, the idea of a single database for all of them—donors, volunteers, clients, email subscribers, advocates and everyone else—is something of a holy grail.
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October 2011
(This article originally appeared in the Nonprofit Times.) As user demand increases, vendors are adapting their donor management system offerings to support mobile devices and cloud computing, one of several recent market trends that are adding value and capability to the software. They’re also enhancing functionality that’s critical for nonprofits, like integrated email and ease of use, in many cases adding substantial functionality without raising prices.
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October 2011
Completely updated in 2011, the free 183-page Consumers Guide to Grants Management looks at the features and processes used by 22 grants management systems to help private foundations accept and review applications and track grants throughout their life cycles.
