A Microsoft Packed Toolbox for Fundraising Organizations

“A Microsoft Packed Toolbox for Fundraising Organizations” – Part 4 Microsoft Power Apps portals

Previous blogs in this series

• Part 1: Dynamics Fundraising and Engagement replaces Blackbaud – view here
• Part 2: Dynamics Marketing replaces Blackbaud’s Luminate – view here
• Part 3: Power BI – view here

Overview

As part of the project implementation, a Microsoft Power Apps portal was leveraged to host the client’s online donation and grantee portal.

What are Power App portals?

Power Apps portals provide organizations a way to create external-facing websites for their public users. The benefits of Power Apps in general are here. In this client example, a Power Apps portal was created to drive donor engagement and increase support for their cause.

Power App portals features

• Access to the data verse
• Simplified portal creation
• Extensibility to enhance self-service

Access to the dataverse

In a previous system, data was soiled and staff had to manually import and export files to keep information in sync across systems and sites. By building a portal using Power Apps the external-facing website accesses data stored in the Dataverse directly. Records like constituent demographics and transaction history can all be displayed, updated, and maintained through the portal or staff experience without requiring customization or redundancy.

Simplified portal creation

With a Power Apps portal, the client was able to take ownership of their site without having to rely on custom development. It is easy to build a portal leveraging

• Portal templates and the drag-and-drop editor
• Components such as sections for layouts aid in the creation of portal pages
• Use friendly sitemap configuration
• HTML editor to tailor web page content
• Provided themes, tailored to match the organization’s brand, creating consistency with the public website

Extensibility to enhance self-service

As with many Dynamics 365 products, there is the ability to extend the technology in endless ways with customizations.

The below lists some examples of these customizations implemented to increase the user experience:

• Peer-to-peer fundraising empowers supporters to apply to raise money on behalf of the organization
• Flexible payments options including
  • Zelle
  • ACH
  • Credit card
  • PayPal
  • Mobile Wallet (i.e., Android and Apply Pay)
• Employer-Sponsored Match to increase the number of donation dollars
• Tailored profile where contact information, invoices, and past applications, transactions, and donations can be accessed

Why RSM?

RSM is a recommended Microsoft Partner with experience successfully implementing Microsoft F&E and Dynamics 365 Marketing. RSM also distinguishes itself from the competition by providing additional features on top of Microsoft’s solution, including:

• A pre-built donor portal accepting payments through various methods including CC and PayPal
• Integrated marketing with automated tracking of donations to source campaigns
• Accounting enhancements and automated integration into accounting systems
• Expert data architects map data from legacy systems into F&E

Jacque Jambrone

Jacque is a manager with 8+ years of experience in the nonprofit industry. She is well-versed in large and small associations, and charitable and grantmaking organizations, and understands how to advise differently based on size, constituent count, and budget while keeping the organization’s mission at the forefront. She specializes in finding the best solutions to support grant, fundraising, membership, and association-focused organizations. She maintains that the focus remains on the people and works to formulate processes by leveraging technology.