The Nonprofit's Guide To Choosing A Modern Giving Platform

The power of a unified modern giving platform

In today’s rapidly changing world, nonprofit organizations face unique challenges in connecting with their communities and fulfilling their missions. One common issue is using multiple disconnected tools and systems to manage donor and volunteer relationships, events, communications, and more. This fragmented approach often leads to inefficiencies, missed opportunities, and unnecessary complications. But what if there was a solution designed specifically for nonprofits to streamline their operations and enhance their impact? Enter a unified modern giving platform like Bloomerang.

Let’s explore the common problems faced by nonprofits like yours and how you can better serve your mission by consolidating all of your needs into a single platform.

The problem: managing a patchwork of disconnected tools

You may be juggling an array of tools and systems to manage your daily operations. These tools may include:

• Donor management software: To track supporters, donations, and fundraising efforts.
• Event management tools: To organize and promote events, from fundraisers to galas.
• Marketing and engagement platforms: To communicate with donors and supporters.
• Volunteer management systems: To manage and coordinate volunteers for various activities and events.
• Fundraising tools: To create and manage campaigns, accept online donations, and track donor contributions.
• Payment processing systems: To handle financial transactions and ensure accurate donation processing.
• Mobile support: To access critical data and tools from anywhere, enabling efficient remote work and outreach.
• Reporting and analytics: To measure the impact of your activities and make data-driven decisions.

This patchwork of disconnected tools can create several challenges:

• Inefficiencies: Navigating between systems, entering data multiple times, and dealing with data inconsistencies waste valuable staff and volunteer time.
• Higher costs: Juggling multiple software subscriptions and maintenance expenses strains financial resources, diverting funds from the organization’s core mission.
• Missed opportunities: Overlooking significant donor interactions, failing to follow up with potential supporters, or missing opportunities to engage with the community because you’re working with a disjointed set of tools.
• Limited insights: Gaining meaningful insights into donor behavior, event attendance, or campaign effectiveness becomes daunting without a centralized system.
• Collaboration difficulties: Collaborating on projects and campaigns can be challenging when team members use different tools that don’t integrate easily.
• Data security risks: Managing sensitive donor and supporter data across multiple platforms can increase the risk of data breaches and compliance issues.

What about donor management software (DMS)?

While donor management software (DMS) does manage donor data, events, and organizational activities, it typically functions as a standalone solution. However, DMS tools often lack the comprehensive member management functionality found in integrated giving platforms.

These integrated platforms offer a more holistic approach, combining donor management, volunteer management, and fundraising capabilities—providing a seamless, comprehensive system for tracking and engaging with members, donors, and volunteers.

Using DMS alongside other disconnected systems for donor management, email marketing, and volunteer coordination can lead to inefficiencies. Team members may find it challenging to work with multiple interfaces and share information because there’s no integration, negatively affecting their ability to operate effectively. This segmented approach not only restricts your capacity to gain comprehensive insights but also exposes you to:

1. Data integrity issues because you’re working off multiple data sources.
2. Data security risks and compliance issues because you’re managing sensitive information across multiple platforms.

The solution: adopting a comprehensive modern giving platform

The solution to these challenges is adopting a unified giving platform like Bloomerang, purpose-built for mission-based organizations. Here’s how a platform like this can modernize your operations:

Streamlined donor management

A best-in-class giving platform for nonprofits provides interactive dashboards that deliver insights into your organization’s performance metrics, including recurring giving campaigns, campaign effectiveness, and donation tracking. The platform also offers a consolidated timeline of donations and interactions at both the individual and organizational levels, giving you insights into supporter engagement. The platform makes it easy to group and “segment” your audiences with pinpoint accuracy for targeted communication, re-engagement, and stewardship efforts with user-friendly, filter-based reporting. And it integrates with your existing software tools—consolidating data for a more complete view of donor engagement that transcends basic contact information.

Beyond these table stakes, Bloomerang also offers an exclusive Predictive Giving Insights feature that goes beyond wealth screening to show you who’s ready, willing, and able to give. And built-in tools make it effortless to create a list you can use right away. Use this feature to measure donors’ overall interest in and commitment to your organization.

Integrated event management

Hosting events, whether they’re worship services, fundraising galas, or community outreach programs, shouldn’t require you to use half a dozen separate tools.

Using a unified giving solution makes it easy to promote events, manage registrations and revenue, and track attendance, all within the same platform—without needing a separate event registration platform.

For example, using the Bloomerang Mobile App, you can simplify attendance tracking, as well as in-person giving and donation processing. These forms automatically generate transaction and interaction entries. You can also generate event registration reports from within the platform without importing data from external event tools.

Seamless marketing and engagement

Communicating with your constituents is critical to building stronger connections and lasting relationships—and switching between your email marketing platform and your donor database is so last century. Integrated email marketing tools within a best-in-class giving platform purpose built for mission-based organizations can help you create and send personalized emails, letters, mailings, acknowledgments, and surveys—making it easy to cultivate deeper connections with your supporters and build better fundraising outcomes. Plus, the platform provides valuable insights into donor behavior and preferences, enabling you to tailor your engagement strategies to what resonates most with your audience.

Email marketing tools built into Bloomerang streamline your communications efforts by eliminating the need for separate mass email platforms—whether you use the standard templates or create your own. The platform also provides email deliverability insights so your messages reach their intended recipients, while the ability to design and print personalized mailings adds a personal touch to your outreach. An easy-to-use editor simplifies content creation, and communication auditing tools help maintain readability and appropriateness for your target audience.

You can also take advantage of donor surveys to learn more about your supporters’ preferences and expectations, all within the platform.

Effective volunteer coordination

Your volunteers are instrumental in helping advance your organization’s mission—whether with hands-on assistance, community outreach, or fundraising efforts. So, streamlining volunteer management is essential to ensure your organization provides an amazing experience that keeps your volunteers engaged.

Best-in-class volunteer management solutions work with the DMS to simplify volunteer recruitment and retention so you can manage more volunteers in less time, make it easy for you to create excellent volunteer experiences, and help you show the impact your programs are making toward fulfilling your organization’s mission.

Your volunteers get an easy and frictionless experience that keeps them engaged and coming back.

Bloomerang Volunteer—integrated within the Bloomerang giving platform—receives high marks from customers for its user-friendly interface, straightforward implementation, appealing aesthetics, and robust mobile app capabilities.

Streamlined payment processing

Payment processing is often among a nonprofit’s greatest challenges: cost structures that may not align with your organization’s financial objectives, the complexity of migrating transactions into your database, reconciling multiple systems, and, let’s not even get started on the valuable time you’ll never get back managing these processes.

A modern giving platform with best-in-class payment processing capabilities can enhance your online donation conversion rates, simplify onsite event fundraising, ensure the security of every transaction, and free up valuable time. You’ll want to make sure that the payment processing feature aligns fees with market expectations and that the system accommodates future payment enhancements by making it easy to cater to the preferences of next-generation donors.

Bloomerang Payments offers several innovative ways to capture generosity the moment inspiration strikes—with branded giving pages, responsive giving forms, crowdfunding, text-to-donate and QR codes, plus digital wallets and contactless payment options like Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Venmo, and Tap to Pay.

Convenient mobile capabilities

Events are back. And more than half of all donors are attending fundraising events. Whether you’re hosting an event, exhibiting at a conference, or meeting one-on-one with a donor, an integrated mobile app can capture donations when your donors are most inspired and motivated to give. You’ll want a mobile app that delivers real-time access to the platform’s fundraising capabilities so you can engage your donors, track transactions, and perform donor research right from a mobile device.

The mobile app should also accept onsite donations using contactless payment technology—like Bloomerang Tap to Pay—and credit card swipers.

The Bloomerang Mobile App, combined with Bloomerang Payments, streamlines donation processing by offering a user-friendly platform that enables you to easily manage donations, track donor engagement, and receive payments securely and efficiently. Instant real-time insights facilitate donor relationship building. The app lets you favorite engaged donors, making it easy to stay updated on donor activities, update profile notes, and manage tasks—all from a smartphone or an iPad. It offers quick wealth screening for potential donors and simplifies task management, enabling direct communication with donors. These features will save you time and ensure prompt outreach, regardless of location.

Comprehensive reporting and analytics

Robust reporting and analytics tools deliver valuable insights into your donors’ behavior and motivations, enabling you to allocate resources more efficiently and personalize your campaigns. To support your decision-making process, look for reporting functionality that can quickly generate in-depth reports for presentations, marketing efforts, fundraising initiatives, and annual planning.

The reporting tool in the giving platform you select should make it easy to develop year-over-year reports and glean insights to steward donors into lifelong supporters. Look for dashboard metrics and customizable templates so you can better understand your donors and nurture them into committed supporters of your mission.

Bloomerang Reporting and Analytics equips nonprofit organizations like yours with actionable data you can trust so you can make informed decisions and strengthen donor relationships. It includes dynamic groups that simplify donor insights and stewardship, a filter-based reporting system for creating instant reports, customizable report templates, and the ability to schedule reports for timely insights. And the platform offers supporter sentiment analysis to gauge donor feelings and track changes in trust, commitment, satisfaction, and intimacy with your organization.

Enhanced collaboration

The power of a unified giving platform lies in its ability to enhance collaboration within your organization. Collaborative features enable your team members to access the same data and work together seamlessly, achieving common goals and streamlining operations. With centralized access to donor information, donation records, volunteer teams, and campaign data, a modern giving platform facilitates collaboration, improving overall productivity and enabling your organization to work more cohesively toward its mission.

Bloomerang delivers shared access to comprehensive donor profiles, collaborative task management, and intuitive communication tools—making it easy for teams to work harmoniously. The platform’s intuitive design and collaborative features help nonprofits of any size streamline operations and drive greater impact in their communities.

Data security and compliance

Clean, up-to-date data is crucial for fundraising success. Make sure the data in your giving platform stays current and secure with robust data management that automates data hygiene, protects sensitive donor information, and complies with mandates like GDPR.

Ensure your donor database remains accurate by looking for automatic daily updates, including addresses, birth years, and wealth information. Valuable insights from across your technology tools help build deeper donor relationships and streamline operations.

Bloomerang data management tools update and standardize addresses, deceased suppression, birth year updates, and the Zapier integration every night. And SOC2 Compliance delivers enterprise-level security.

The result: driving transformation with a best-in-class unified giving platform

Now that we’ve discussed how a modern giving platform can solve the problems nonprofits often face, here’s why that’s important for your organization:

• Improved efficiencies: By centralizing your operations, you eliminate duplicate data entry and reduce manual work, freeing up your staff’s time for more meaningful tasks.
• Increased engagement: Personalized communication, streamlined events, and timely follow ups enhance your engagement with donors and community members, fostering stronger relationships.
• Data-driven decision making: Access to real-time data and analytics empowers you to make informed decisions, allocate resources wisely, and adapt your strategies based on measurable outcomes.
• Cost savings: Consolidating your tools into one platform can save costs by reducing the need for multiple subscriptions and minimizing training time.
• Stronger community impact: When your operations run smoothly, you can focus on your mission and the positive impact you have on your community, leading to greater overall success.

The last word

In a world where you’re tasked with doing more with less, a unified modern giving platform is a game changer. Addressing the issues of fragmented tools and disjointed data will empower your organization to operate more efficiently, engage more effectively, and significantly impact your community. The time has come to embrace a unified solution and transform the way you connect, serve, and thrive.