Oops

You’ll be successful if you faithfully do the best you can with what you have

Don’t let fear of making a mistake stop you doing excellent fundraising.

Because guess what, mistakes happen! – Actually everyone makes mistakes and while we should try to avoid them don’t cripple yourself by spending all your energy trying to avoid them.

Mistakes are part of learning.

And not all mistakes are disasters.

If you’re always getting it right, there is a good chance you’re not trying hard enough. No one is that lucky 🙂

Good fundraising involves (at times) taking risks, moving fast, and speaking the truth – at an outcome of that is sometimes you’ll make mistakes.

The best thing you can do with a mistake: learn from it.

Keep your eyes open, work hard, take the necessary risks, and don’t let mistakes stop you.

They are part of growing.

Record Your Donor Details

Here is a simple Excel spreadsheet as a starting place for recording your donor details.

Download

Read a little more on CRM systems.

CRM Software

There are literally hundreds of options for a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system for your ministry. There are some free options but usually they are limited to a short time or a small number of records.

One truly Free option worth exploring is TNTConnect

As CRM software is a rapidly changing field you are probably best to do your own search. But before you do here are some questions you should consider. Start by thinking about Strategy.

Are you doing agressive donor acquisition or more focussed on retention activity?
What Details do you want to store? For Who? Donors, Customers, Volunteers?
Where do you want to house your data? Locally? Cloud?
How many donors do you need to manage?
What questions do you need reports on?
How many people will need access to your donor details on a daily basis?
What other systems do you need to work with? eg email lists, websites, events, social media?
How will you manage Privacy and Security?

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