DonorDrive™ | Fundraising, constituent, donation & event management software

CHADS (Communities Healing Adolescent Depression & Suicide) Coalition works to end the tragic loss of young lives to suicide by raising funds for early-onset depression research, educating the community regarding teen depression, and advocating for mental health treatment for adolescents. Our organization’s goal is to raise $200,000 in 2008 — more than double our 2007 fundraising total!

CHADS Coalition for Mental Health just broke $125,000 raised through DonorDrive™!

http://chads.donordrive.com

By Dan Volkens, Interactive Designer

WALK TO SAVE LIVES… In the United States, a person dies by suicide every 16 minutes, claiming more than 32,000 lives each year. It is estimated that an attempt is made every minute; with close to one million people attempting suicide annually.

AFSP (American Foundation for Suicide Prevention) just broke $200,000 raised with DonorDrive™! Congratulations!

http://afsp.donordrive.com

By Dan Volkens, Interactive Designer

In case you haven’t heard, Blackbaud (who specializes in nonprofit software and services) has purchased Kintera (maker of nonprofit “software as a service”) this week for a price of 46 million. The acquisition should create the largest nonprofit software provider on the map. It will be interesting to see how the remaining big player in the market, Convio, reacts to this move.

But I have to wonder if this is really a good thing. In our experiences, we’ve found that nonprofit organizations prefer to be treated with a more personal touch, and enjoy software that is smaller, more focused and easier to use. Blackbaud’s new growth will essentially create something similar to the Microsoft of the nonprofit software world. It will be a challenge to create and maintain solutions with a personal feel.

We’ll be watching the upcoming events unfold with great interest.

Read the full press release here.

By Matt Radel, Interactive Designer

WALK TO SAVE LIVES… In the United States, a person dies by suicide every 16 minutes, claiming more than 32,000 lives each year. It is estimated that an attempt is made every minute; with close to one million people attempting suicide annually.

AFSP (American Foundation for Suicide Prevention) just broke $150,000 raised with DonorDrive™! Congratulations!

http://afsp.donordrive.com

By Dan Volkens, Interactive Designer

Whether you view the nation as being in an economic downturn or flat-out recession, most organizations are forecasting an increase in overall grant making throughout 2008.

A recent study by the Foundation Center shows a growth trend in foundation grant making over the last three years which suggests continual growth through 2008 despite the nation’s economic problems. More than half (54.3%) of organizations responding to the study said they plan to increase their giving. Of that percentage, the largest organizations - those giving $10 million or more - are the most likely to see the increase.

For more details, head over to the Foundation Center’s website.

By Dan Volkens, Interactive Designer

The growth of Social Networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace has exploded over the past year, raising many questions in the nonprofit industry about using these sites to reach potential donors. Generally speaking it seems to make perfect sense: set up an account, start making friends and spread the word without spending a dime…just beware that you’re targeting the right people and not spamming the masses on the site.

But does it work? Unfortunately the jury still seems to be out, as some have pointed out very limited returns (an average of $1.24 per supporter on Facebook) or that 51% of donors are “Not at all Interested” in social networks. Some have even posted signs that social networking sites aren’t for your organization.

Still others have effectively leveraged social media to spread word of their cause. Due to the fact that they were targeting a younger audience for Dance Marathon at UCLA, the students created a Facebook page and posted promotional videos to YouTube to help them reach their goal.

Ultimately the decision should be yours, and should be largely decided by your target audience. It is extremely difficult to ignore not only the growth of these sites, but the users that frequent them - the younger, potentially cause aware folks with more disposable income. To sign up and use these services is entirely free - all it will cost you is your time. 

So ask yourself, it it worth it? You may be surprised at the answer. 

By Matt Radel, Interactive Designer

CHADS (Communities Healing Adolescent Depression & Suicide) Coalition works to end the tragic loss of young lives to suicide by raising funds for early-onset depression research, educating the community regarding teen depression, and advocating for mental health treatment for adolescents. Our organization’s goal is to raise $200,000 in 2008 — more than double our 2007 fundraising total!

CHADS Coalition for Mental Health just broke $55,000 raised through DonorDrive™!

http://chads.donordrive.com

By Dan Volkens, Interactive Designer

We’re very pleased to announce the addition of the Best of Taste competition to DonorDrive™! The results of this competition will determine the menu items available for the nation’s longest running annual culinary arts festival, the Taste of Cincinnati. The Best of Taste competition will take place at the Duke Energy Center on May 12th at 5pm and is produced by the Greater Cincinnati Restaurant Association. All proceeds from the event will benefit the Cincinnati location of the Fisher House.

Best of Taste is using DonorDrive™ to sell tickets for the event, priced at $25 per individual or $10 per veteran. Head on over and grab your tickets and we’ll see you at the Best of Taste!

By Matt Radel, Interactive Designer

Within the past few weeks we’ve quietly updated our address book within DonorDrive™ Central to give participants the ability to upload contacts from the their web E-mail accounts (such as Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, Gmail, MSN, Lycos, Mac.com, Mail.com, FastMail.FM, Rediffmail, Indiatimes, GMX, LinkedIn, IcqMail, Web.de, and MyNet.com). You can send contacts invitations to join your teams or to make donations.

Import Contacts From Your Web E-mail Account
Log into DonorDrive™ Central and click on “Address Book” from the homepage or the sidebar navigation and click on the “Import Contacts from Web E-mail”.

Enter your E-mail address and password and click “Retrieve Contacts”.

On the following screen you’ll see a list of all the contacts from your E-mail account, and you can choose which ones (or all) to import into DonorDrive™ Central. 

We hope importing Web E-mail contacts makes your life easier
We’ve taken great care in crafting our import tools to save you the headache of having to manually recreate dozens of contacts (believe us, we’ve been there). If you already have your contacts within a supported email account or a CSV file, you can get them into DonorDrive™.

By Matt Radel, Interactive Designer

Since 2002, UCLA’s Dance Marathon has raised thousands of dollars each year for Pediatric Aids research and support. The funds benefit three organizations: the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation - the largest pediatric AIDS foundation in the United States, and Camp Kindle & Camp Heartland - two free summer camp programs that provide HIV-affected children the experience of a lifetime.

This year UCLA Dance Marathon raised a total of $384,507.80 through 1,772 participants, just breaking their event goal of $380,000! Out of the total funds received, over 81% of all donations were made online!

Cross-promotion for donations was easily accomplished by event participants who placed links back to their DonorDrive™ personal fundraising pages across media outlets such as Facebook, Myspace, Youtube and others. DonorDrive™ also has built-in tools to allow participants to send out donation and team invitation e-mails to addresses imported from their favorite e-mail programs such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail, MSN, etc.

The simplicity and automation of the personal fundraising page allowed participants to drive quick, timely donations to the event from friends, family and the rest of the public.

Congratulations UCLA on another successful year and thank you for using DonorDrive™ to achieve your goal!

By Dan Volkens, Interactive Designer