All Charity Dynamics retained services clients get weekly status updates that allow us to keep track of all the various initiatives our teams are collaborating on.
Each week, we share the most innovative ideas we see and look for ways to keep our clients on the cutting edge.
For July, we shared lots of ideas that feature some of our favorite vendors and partners that we have worked with in the past to help make clients successful. Here are three of our favorite ideas from the past month that feature some of these excellent organizations:
1) Plan Ahead and Avoid Website Overage Charges
A recently published CNN article detailing where funds from the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge went. The article is a great read (or watch for a shorter version), but we found something particularly interesting about fees. The article notes that the ALS Association “got zapped with website overage charges since so many people visited.” One way to avoid this problem is to work with an organization like Kimbia – which allows you to launch and manage a high volume fundraising campaign such as a Giving Day or Giving Tuesday event. This can be particularly useful if your organization is already under contract for a given website usage volume.
2) Build an Online Community
Many of our clients are finding success by building custom member / fundraising communities on their site powered by Small World Labs. The platform can integrate with Blackbaud Luminate Online so that the same username and password used for event registration and participant center access can also provide access to a community that connects constituents through discussions, friend features, fundraising tips and more.
3) Sync or Swim
For most organizations, syncing data from an online CRM platform to a central CRM with data from many sources is a key consideration that affects the day to day business operations. Your options vary from highly manual processes to fully integrated systems offered by the CRM platforms themselves. In your search for the best option, consider the a third party vendor with tools to help bridge the gap between your systems that might not otherwise ‘talk’ to each other. Several Charity Dynamics clients have found success using ImportOmatic. Check out the complete product offering on their site.
About Charity Dynamics Retained Services:
Charity Dynamics Strategic Retainers are planned, hours based, ongoing engagements where project teams collaborate on the short and long term needs of the client. A strategic retainer allows for flexibility and access to the full diversity of expertise on the Charity Dynamics team including consultants, web developers, designer and UX experts. A dedicated project manager is assigned to each client retainer to ensure the proper resource is made available for the specific client needs. To check out ideas from past months, check out past 2015 articles: June, May, April, March, February and January!
If you loved any of the ideas above and want to hear more, contact us today!