Enhancing Impact: Using Technology As Strategic Tool

Just like a business measures its success by its revenues, a non profit measures its success by impact. To power this impact, fundraising and development are crucial.

At the same time, fundraising itself is an ever-changing field. It is more competitive now because there are more non profits coming up on the horizon than ever before, and donors have a wider "choice" of whom to support via their donation.

Fundraising has also become more complex because donors now have several options of engaging with a cause and keeping themselves informed about their interests. It was always important to know your donor, but now there are so many facets of your donor that you can know: donor's history, interests, social media activities and patterns of engagement -- all together give you a fuller profile of the donor. What makes Sally motivated to donate? Does Joe attend fundraising events or prefers to make cash donation? These insights can then be used to take your organization's relationship with a donor to a new level.

Engaging with donors now is possible via several social media channels: and their activity can be channeled to further your cause.

While facing these outside challenges, many non profits also have their own challenges to overcome: budgets are modest and staff is already working hard. Many rely on a team of dedicated volunteers who work selflessly with little training and consistency in their methods, thus leading to a somewhat loosely organized effort. It may seem like a non profit hits a glass ceiling on how much impact it can have, based on its availability of resources.

This glass ceiling is daunting, but not altogether impossible to overcome.

This challenge underscores a need for a strategic vision and solution for managing a non profit's important data. This includes not only donor data, but also data specific to programs and volunteer activities. By using technology as a strategic tool, a non profit can achieve operational efficiency and results with the same constraints with respect to budget and manpower.

And with the right technology, an organization can run like a turbocharged engine, where the efficiency and results go higher.

At the same time, this strategic use of data management technology also helps with creating a communication strategy with the donors, such that the non profit stays in touch with their core base consistently and also via channels that the donor is most receptive to.

ROI for a non profit then can be: Results, Outcome, Impact. Technology can help achieve a greater ROI.

In this blog series, we will visit top pain points of non profits and then discuss how each of these can be eased, if not fully resolved, with technology. Keep visiting us and let us know what you think, in the comments section below!!