Take your fundraising beyond Giving Tuesday

While we have just finished up with Giving Tuesday, it is just a reminder of how much fundraising impacts your organization. While Giving Tuesday has become part of the mainstream here in the United States, organizations need a fundraising strategy year-round. In some cases, there is simply too much competition on Giving Tuesday. In other cases, a series of $50 pledges are not going to get you to your goal. In any of these cases, a system that provides communication tracking and donation processing is key to a fundamental fundraising strategy.

How does Microsoft Dynamics help with Nonprofit?

To help facilitate this need, Microsoft has introduced Dynamics 365 for Fundraising and Engagement into its suite of offerings to the Not For Profit community. This product, released on October 1 of this year, is built on top of Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement, one of the top customer relationship management (CRM) systems currently available. The product is designed to manage outreach, either automatically through drip campaigns or manually in order to provide a message to your constituents about your fundraising efforts. The system will record standard email metrics like click-through and open rates to make sure your message is being received and absorbed by your constituent population. Additional engagement functionality around automated thank you messages and reminders about reoccurring donations are available in the system.

To handle larger donations, the Dynamics system will allow your Gifts Officer to work via a mobile device alieving the need to work in a bulky system while on the road. The mobile capabilities are the same as that of a desktop. This is presented through a native application on the device.

What happens next?

While we are excited about the new Dynamics product, the message of this blog goes beyond a particular system. Fundraising cannot sufficiently be achieved through just one day or one campaign. Ongoing donations and requests need to take place to expand your gifts revenue. A system is required to sufficiently manage this need. Systems allow for automation and a reduction in manual efforts. Ultimately what this allows for is a full plan on how to ask for the donation, receive it, follow up and acknowledge the gift.

Contact our nonprofit team at nfp@rsmus.com with questions or to learn more about enhancing your fundraising efforts.

Bob Kanzler

Principal of RSM's Dynamics 365 CE focused on our east coast clients and non profits.