That Was Really Smart!

People like to be liked. One way to make that happen is to let them know how smart they are. Trust me, it works- How many times in the last few months has someone told you were really smart???? How did that make you feel? Pretty good, eh?

Well, I had the fortune of saying just that to a client of ours yesterday. This week we are holding our annual National Sales Meeting for all sales account managers, and part of the process is to conduct a client roundtable discussion where clients can share their opinions of DonorPerfect with our sales staff.

One of the clients, the Asheville Humane Society, led us through a demonstration of how they use DonorPerfect. It was a bit unusual to be on the receiving end of a demonstration, and it was very insightful.

At one point, the development director displayed our Comprehensive Analysis Report, which shows over 26 different fundraising statistics. Unfortunately, it did show a decrease in new donors acquired in the last 12 months- about a 15% drop. Interestingly, overall giving was flat, but the decrease in new donors was alarming.

Why? While the drop in new donors may not have an immediate effect now, it will CERTAINLY have an effect 1 to 2 years from now. And despite the current economic conditions, it could potentially be even worse in the future.

So they acted aggressively by increasing their acquisition campaign. Since they also use DonorPerfect to monitor the success of these campaigns, they were confident that they would achieve the desired effect to increase new donors and thus avoid a dramatic revenue decline in the future. What happened? It worked.

Now that's really smart.

News Bits...

In the news...

I opened the front page of my local paper today, and discovered that the Hunter Soccer Club, a local soccer club for youth in the area, lost $25,000 in on-line donations when the firm they used, Count Me In, Inc., went bankrupt.

Here's the article about the bankruptcy. Interestingly, the web-site still seems open for business.

Among other allegations, it was suggested that the company did not have a reserve built in for registration payments, and co-mingled funds from its customers and used those funds to pay expenses. This, my friends, is just another example of a Ponzi scheme, where registrations funds from new customers are used to pay off old customers. Like the recent Madoff scheme, it was inevitable that the scheme would fail, as expenses piled up and they no longer were able to continue to "rob Peter to pay Paul". What is extraordinary was that it appears to have lasted many years, collecting somewhere north of $175 million before it fell apart.

What's the lesson to be learned here? Organizations should use their own merchant accounts. This way, the money collected from credit cards never pass through the vendor, and is deposited directly with the organization. It's also why we offer WebLink, our online fundraising software to collect and process donations, registrations, and even purchases that then easily integrates with DonorPerfect.

More Local News...

Coincidentally, in the same local paper, I spied our own company news - SofterWare acquires Agena Informatique. While it isn't news to me, it is certainly an indication of our continued growth in the industry. We will now control an office in Quebec, and we plan to expand rapidly in the rest of Canada as we'll have an increased presence on the ground.

So it's barely a month in and it looks like some of my top ten predictions are already starting to come true. I wonder what's next? Stay tuned.......