The pandemic forced nonprofits to streamline their operations to continue serving their mission in the long-term. It also forced nonprofits to urgently address challenges that have persisted for many years, such as an inability to scale up their operations.
As a professional in the nonprofit sector, you have probably had to consider one or more of the following three areas:
- Think carefully about your mission and reframe your mission and impact statement in a way that resonates with your supporters.
- Assess finances and develop contingency plans for possible scenarios your organization may experience.
- Develop the capacity to adapt to changing operating environments, collaborate with like-minded organizations, and leverage technology for data-driven decision making.
Even if your organization has the resources to quickly review and overhaul your operations, you may not be able to achieve the best possible results because of a widespread problem in the nonprofit sector – unreliable or incomplete data in the hands of nonprofits.
Expensive digitization
The biggest hindrance to scaling up has been a lack of configured solutions that address all of your nonprofit’s needs. You may have had to implement several different tools and programs that do not always fully integrate with each other. This creates the following problems:
- Fragmented data needing inefficient, manual workarounds
- Expensive technology integrations and maintenance
Data management can be a massive undertaking. Data scientists spend nearly half their time organizing and cleaning data. Many nonprofits understandably decide to spend their limited resources on directly serving their mission instead of on expensive software. This is why even though 85% of nonprofits acknowledge that technology is crucial to their success, only 23% have a long-term strategy to using it.
To help the sector overcome these challenges, nonprofit technology providers are collaborating on initiatives to help nonprofits efficiently scale their operations while keeping their donors’ data safe.
Microsoft Fundraising and Engagement
Microsoft has developed the Nonprofit Common Data Model, a set of best practices that standardize data management for nonprofits, such as fundraising, constituent engagement, and reporting. It is a necessary step to cut costs and modernize fundraising and constituent management.
Falling under the umbrella of Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit, Microsoft Fundraising and Engagement supports common fundraising activities across multiple donation types and channels such as:
- Major and annual giving
- Recurring gift and membership programs
- Opportunity and designation management, and
- Household and life event management
It offers campaign, package, and appeal workflow functionality, as well as insights and campaign segmentation tools available on the Microsoft platform. This allows you to execute comprehensive, well-informed marketing campaigns.
Fundraising and Engagement automates many processes and improves workflows. Donor information is imported directly into the system, allowing you to assess revenue streams and project revenue in real time.
It also promotes greater transparency with stakeholders, so you can focus on improving your relationships and programs. This allows you to more quickly and transparently communicate impact stories to your donors, producing better results.
Functions such as payment processing, data management, and business intelligence are powered by Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Power BI.
Built for nonprofits
Your nonprofit no longer has to settle for solutions not built for you, and spend valuable time and resources customizing them to your needs. Microsoft Fundraising and Engagement was developed with nonprofits in mind, with support from nonprofit technology providers such as MISSION CRM.
Given the greater than ever demand for your services and shrinking resources, there is an urgent need to maximize your nonprofit’s impact and serve the common good. To do this, you need to be able to scale up your operations affordably and with reliable data.
As the only payments provider exclusively for nonprofits, iATS Payments by Deluxe® is proud to provide payment processing for Microsoft Fundraising and Engagement. Nonprofit technology providers have come together to pool their knowledge and resources to develop solutions that allow you to focus on what you do best – serve your communities.
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