Donations Are Up, But Not From Alumni

The Council for Aid to Education is releasing a report today that documents the "success of colleges in attracting support from alumni, other individuals, businesses and foundations" as well as some trends that could cause concern such a decline in alumni giving. The report expands on some explanations for this decline, including "a number of which are based on demographics and technology, not changing attitudes among alumni."

Read more of this February 20, 2008 article from Inside Higher Ed.

A Few Good Tools: Low-Cost Constituent Databases

The Foundation Center (http://www.foundationcenter.org) is offering a series of articles about the effective use of technology by nonprofits.

Click here to read the first article in the series about organizing constituent data and questions you should as before choosing a database.

A good read: The Soft(ware) Side of Fundraising Effectiveness

Read Tim Mills-Groninger's special report on "The Soft(ware) Side of Fundraising Effectiveness" that was published in The NonProfit Times. Tim writes about AFP's pilot Fundraising Effectiveness Program (FEP) that is aiming at establishing organizational, geographic, and sector benchmarks for development programs. He goes on to discuss the "simple measures of effectiveness" including the importance of data and fundraising databases as well as the role of software in fundraising.

Privacy Debate

To continue the conversation on data privacy...here's a link to an editorial in the Roanoke Times regarding a bill that would exempt the University of Virginia from a portion of the Freedom of Information Act.

Getting Smart With Database Enhancements

Advancement and development services provide fundraising's core operational resource - data. These data tell us who to call, solicit, cultivate and steward. The more relevant, actionable data we have, the more we can help drive progress. From list purchases to email appends, some elements of data enhancement will be essential for your team's effective support of fundraising. This article offers some insights about enhancing data sets.

Read this NonProfitTimes article by Marta Nobles.

SaaS Goes To Work At Motorola And The Humane Society

Do you need to understand SaaS? Software as a Service is expanding as a means of offering database and CRM applications via the Internet. Sometimes referred to as "hosted" or even "Application Service Provider" options, this nuanced approach is increasingly used by Big Business and non-profits and educational institutions of all sizes. The following article details the Humane Society's use of SaaS technology as a case study.

Read this 12.01.07 InformationWeek article by Andrew Conry-Murray.

Penetrating New Constituent Groups

Learn how to integrate high-tech and high-touch approaches to expand your fundraising base in this article published in the fall 2007 AHP Journal and co-authored by Bentz Whaley Flessner consultants Josh Birkholz and Chris Cannon.

Read the article.

10 Common Mistakes in Selecting Donor Databases (and How to Avoid Them)

I found this useful resource while doing some research online the other day. Cick here to view a presentation by Robert Weiner on the 10 common mistakes that can prevent you from selecting the right database and managing it effectively.