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Newsletter, October 2007

By Karen Graham, Client Development Manager

Nonprofit Neighborhood

Databank Now Integrated with Fast Charge Payment Gateway

"We found out about Fast Charge from a nonprofit client who spoke highly of the service," said Karen Graham of thedatabank. "In fact, they were so loyal to Fast Charge that they persuaded us to pursue the integration."

This gives Databank users another great option for an affordable, integrated payment processing solution." Payment gateways are used to authorize, and in some cases collect credit card charges for secure online donations, online event registrations, and online purchases.

thedatabank provides the secure online forms and database to manage the information, and often works with third party payment gateways to completely automate the process.

thedatabank has partnerships with five payment gateway companies, including Viaklix, Authorize.net, IATS, VANCO , and now Fast Charge. Visit our Payment Gateway page for more information.

Client suggests new slogan for thedatabank

Tanya Graham of the Wisconsin Association of Lakes recently wrote in with this suggestion:

"We have a new slogan for y'all (read by Morgan Freeman in '70s disc-jockey mode): ' Databank: Puttin' the FUNK into data functionality.'   Oh yeah!"

Thanks Tanya.  You are one cool cat.

New clients

Minnesota Housing Partnership assists community housing organizations in becoming active in creating and maintaining affordable housing across the state of Minnesota. They will use a comprehensive Databank to increase their capacity for supporting housing organizations through loans and grants, technical assistance, building organizational capacity and public policy initiatives.

The Alliance for Metropolitan Stability is a coalition that builds grassroots community campaigns with a variety of faith, social justice, labor, and environmental groups. The Alliance focuses on eliminating social and economic injustice for low-income citizens and people of color through targeted reinvestment in older urban areas. They will be using their new Databank to track their campaigns and fundraising, manage meetings and events and more effectively communicate with their members via HTML email messages.

Colorado Progressive Coalition - Colorado Progressive Coalition ("CPC") was formed in 1996 by community activists and leaders who were fed up with the increasing power of right-wing conservative forces in Colorado. CPC builds coalitions, conducts research, organizes communities, gets out the vote, develops new leaders, registers thousands of new voters each year, and lobbies elected officials at the local, state, and national levels to build a progressive future for Colorado on issues of racial, economic, environmental, and social justice. CPC will be using their new Databank to help sign up and manage volunteers, manage meetings and gatherings, track fundraising efforts, and send out HTML email messages.

Featured Resource

Nonprofit Office

Nonprofit Office is a web site creation and content management tool. Many of thedatabank's clients have chosen this product because it is affordable, and because it enables them to quickly set up a professional looking web site.  Editing and maintenance of the web site is done through a convenient web-based interface, similar to the way you access the Databank.

Web forms, like online donation or email subscription forms, are still hosted by thedatabank and are made to match the look and feel of an organization's Nonprofit Office web site.

This fall, Nonprofit Office will start using thedatabank's eMarketing Module for their in-house enews.  We're excited about the possibilities of working together.

Tip du Jour

Clean up addresses now, for holiday mailings

Consider for a moment how much paper and postage - not to mention time - you might be wasting on bad addresses.  With a Thanksgiving mailing, a holiday appeal, or a year-end report on the horizon, this is a great time to clean up the addresses in your database.

We offer a service called NCOA (National Change of Address) which checks your list against the US Postal Service database of address changes, standardizes address format, and provides updates as available.  It takes about a week and usually only costs $100!

Databank CRM clients can order via Support Request and have the updates made directly in their Databank.

If you're not a current client, you can still order this service A La Carte.  Email karen@thedatabank.com for instructions on how to send us your list.

Karen's Blog

From Click to Commitment: Acquiring and Cultivating Members Online

Earlier this month, on a beautiful autumn day, I drove from Minneapolis up to Duluth for the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits annual conference.  Besides getting some fresh air on the Lake Walk and having great beer and french fries at Fitger's, I also had the pleasure of participating in the conference as an exhibitor and speaker.

I facilitated a panel discussion on "Acquiring and Cultivating Members Online."  The panelists, Tom Lehman of Lehman Associates and Eric Rardin of Care2, talked about various online methods a nonprofit organization can use to build its list.  They also discussed tactics for converting online contacts into donors/members, and how online tools can be used to keep people engaged.

Here are a few kernels I gleaned from Eric, Tom, and audience comments:

• The internet is no longer a supplementary communication channel, it's the primary channel for engaging constituents.
• Online strategy should not live in a silo, it should be integrated with other channels.  Seeing the same message in multiple contexts and through multiple media makes a stronger impression.
• Nonprofits can capitalize on social networking sites (e.g. Facebook, Myspace, Care2) that are created and run by supporters, by reaching out to the site manager, and making it easy for visitors to find the official web site and sign up.
• Email is a key tool for keeping people engaged.  Two keys to success are frequency, usually about 1-4 messages a month depending on the situation; and compelling content that is tailored to the interests of the recipient.
• Online advocacy (e.g. petitions, action alerts) is a great way to build your list and collect information that will help you segment and target future communication.

Chris Hanson, CEO of thedatabank, led a popular session on Text Messaging.  We'll include a summary of that in a future newsletter.

Thanks to everyone who attended our sessions and stopped by our booth in the exhibit area!

Karen

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