Making effective use of technology can increase what you know about your donors and decrease the amount of time, energy, and effort you put into figuring out how to engage them. As you align your internal departments to work in sync toward a shared goal, the next step is to set up centralized systems and shared databases.
Technology is a key component of an integrated fundraising campaign. However, you have to set up an integrated internal communication system to align your team and strategy before you can accomplished an integrated external campaign that reaches your donors.
3 keys to optimize your database to improve donor communication
Here are three ways you can optimize your current donor database to improve your overall strategy for engaging donors:
- Make sure your various databases—marketing, fundraising, finance, etc.—talk to each other or that you exchange reports consistently. Consider centralized software options to coordinate all the various channels and communications going in and out. Inexpensive systems are available as a place to start. You cannot truly measure the worth of an integrated strategy unless you track and prove it with data.
- Let technology do the tedious routine work. If you haven’t done so already, now is the time to automate manual routine practices, such as importing spreadsheets of donor data with address changes, event attendance, and online behavior.
- Accept that no database is perfect. Many solutions exist (and within a range of costs) that are designed to pick up the slack where your current system may be lacking. These systems can provide more robust reporting, create data overlays with external source information, and warehouse data for sophisticated analytics.
Even if your budget is minimal, you can make strides to streamline internal communication and centralize donor data with free or low-cost solutions. Putting these systems and processes in place is the first step toward effectively reaching your donors through an integrated marketing strategy.
If you want to learn about more ways to work across channels to reach your donors, download the free resource, the Intelligent Fundraiser’s Guide to Integrated Fundraising.
Have you considered the ways you can use technology to your advantage?