New Research Identifies “Need for Automation” As Top Reason for Fundraising & Donor Management Software Evaluations

Recent research identified the “need for automation” as the top reason that nonprofit organizations cite when they start looking for fundraising or donor management software. The study, recently released by Software Advice, included participation from thousands of organizations seeking nonprofit management software and sought to identify the top reasons that are driving their decisions for software purchases.

When we saw that a “need for automation” was identified as the top overall reason, it obviously piqued our interest! In the full report – 2014 Fundraising & Donor Management Software, other key findings include:

• A majority of prospective buyers were tracking donations and donor information manually
• Most buyers were seeking software in order to automate such tasks as generating and sending letters to donors

When diving a little deeper, Janna Finch, researcher at Software Advice, also indicated that, “23% of the buyers we spoke to told us they needed to get a better handle on managing fundraising events. Major events can contribute a considerable percentage of a nonprofit’s annual income, but they’re also a lot of work to manage, especially for organizations with only a handful of paid staff or volunteers to get the job done. Nonprofits that are interested in getting the most return from events (or hosting new events) are looking for donor software that can remove the burden of manual tasks from their staff and volunteers.”

She added, “Nonprofits that effectively collect and use donor data have an advantage over those that don’t, because they are not only able to personalize communications, but also figure out what information their donors want and the best way to deliver that message.”

Every year, Software Advice speaks with thousands of organizations looking for the right nonprofit management software—giving them insight into the current needs of software buyers. The research in this study analyzed a random sample of buyers from nonprofit organizations with annual revenues of $100 million or less, to uncover their most common pain points and reasons for purchasing new fundraising and donor management software.

For Omatic, the findings were a welcome validation for us and what we bring to organizations using The Raiser’s Edge® (RE) specifically. We understand the investment that organizations make in RE and work tirelessly to help them maximize that investment by addressing many of the common challenges identified in the research. Here are just a few examples:

• Need for automation – ImportOmatic helps organizations eliminate manual processes with a flexible data import solution
• Managing fundraising events – EventOmatic works with the Events Module in RE to streamline events processes and provide comprehensive event reporting.
• Integrating systems – PostOmatic bridges the gap between RE and financial accounting systems other than The Financial Edge
• Determining/Delivering information that donors want – SegmentOmatic enables segmentation of anything you can query in RE so organizations can stay on message with different types of supporters

Head over to the Software Advice site to view the full report – 2014 Fundraising & Donor Management Software.