Godparents for Tanzania
Godparents for Tanzania is a 501(c)(3) public charity that provides educational opportunities for young people in northern Tanzania. By awarding scholarships and supporting local education projects, Godparents for Tanzania provides ‘hope through education’ to students who are eager for the chance to go to school. With education, young Tanzanians are changing the future for themselves, their families, and their country.
Challenge
Godparents for Tanzania was looking for an adaptable, cloud-based donor management system that they could access on the go and still trust to get the job done.
“Our staff and volunteers work from their homes in different states, and we also spend time in Tanzania each year. Having a database on one computer wasn’t working for us,” said Kristin Westermann, Executive Director at Godparents for Tanzania. After getting a recommendation from Gail Perry, Kristin thought Bloomerang seemed perfect for them.
Solution
Godparents for Tanzania had finally found a dependable system that could they could mold into what they needed. “Having all of our information available in the cloud makes life so much easier. And the ability to customize helps us keep up with our American donors as well as our Tanzanian students.” Bloomerang’s custom fields were a big help for molding the database to their needs. “Having an unlimited number of custom fields available has been fantastic; we always wanted more in our previous database.”
They were also drawn to how Bloomerang could help them with improved donor communication.
“The letter and email features have hugely strengthened our donor communications and improved our donor retention rate.”
On top of that, Godparents for Tanzania has been really happy with Bloomerang’s “fantastic customer support” when they need it.
Results
Godparents for Tanzania has seen several fundraising pain points be alleviated since implementing Bloomerang. One such benefit is that they’ve been able to put donor retention first. Tracking their donor retention, donor loyalty, and donor engagement has been invaluable.
Kristin was also able to improve their productivity while cutting back on costs for other software. “We were also able to cancel our email marketing software (which wasn’t user friendly) in favor of Bloomerang’s integrated email functionality.” As a one-woman shop, a high level of productivity and efficiency was really important, and Bloomerang has been a great asset for it. “With only one paid part-time employee (me!), a high level of productivity is a must. Bloomerang is a comprehensive tool with all the features I need. No switching back and forth between multiple apps to get the job done.”
At the end of the day, all of this has contributed to Godparents for Tanzania putting more focus on donor retention, and seeing that effort pay off. There’s no going back now.
“Putting our donor retention rate in front of us every day has been invaluable. Our retention rate has risen to 70%, and we aim to increase it even more.”
It’s amazing what a user-friendly, donor-centric tool can do for the growth of an organization such as Godparents for Tanzania.