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many of you have been asking about my opinion on top donor management software and so today I'm going to go over the top three but I want to make a disclaimer and so my disclaimer is that the same with accounting software you really have to consider your needs you really have to think about what it is that your organization is trying to accomplish and what I mean by that is um not every organization needs donor management software right like do you manage multiple individual donors you know are you running individual fundraising campaigns like you have to think about what it is that your organization needs and from there is when you start to kind of research and determine what software is going to be the best for you so first off when we think donor management software or you know donor management CRM whichever term you want to use you are essentially looking forward to that's going to allow you to manage donor information maybe send your acknowledgment letters maybe allow you to run individual um campaigns but also a lot of organizations use them to come up with and execute donor retention strategies right and so again you know this is also something to think about when you're considering what software you want to go with now before I get into my top three one of the main questions I'm always getting is like should the donor management tool integrate with QuickBooks and this is my surprise you but uh not necessarily because a lot of times you can then duplicate information right and so you want to determine first what it is that you're trying to do with the donor management tool because that will determine what information from there needs to actually be captured in QuickBooks Online also not every donor management tool allows you to accept payment and things like that so in some cases that information doesn't need to be um you know like integrated with QuickBooks um but if you are using a tool where you're collecting money and you typically are transferring money from like the tool to like your bank account then you want to think about the process because every month at the least you should then be reconciling within your donor management tool with QuickBooks online and so I know it's annoying and I hate it but it really depends and so let's get into the first software we're going to talk about little green light so with little green light the pricing is dependent on the number of donors as a matter of fact most of these softwares are but the base price for little green light is 45 a month okay they do allow for a free trial which I know is very important to um a lot of people when you're choosing to kind of like move over to software a lot of times you want to test it out to see if you want to be able to you know actually implement it in your organization especially because implementation can be a whole piece in itself so you know you want to know like can I test drive this so we talked about that you talked about pricing the next piece is support I like to talk about support because the thing with using a cloud-based tools and software you know support can vary and be limited and so I think it's important that when you're using software that when you have hiccups questions issues that you aren't able to get those addressed and you're able to get them addressed tightly right and so little green light has support through um a couple of different um forms and so they have a community um they have a library online or you can actually contact the team contacting the team is a very important piece because what I've noticed with a lot of software is that they tend to like use a help desk and you're having to email and you're having to you know or use the chat or you can only you know use the online community and sometimes you just need to talk to somebody you know you just need to be able to say hey this is what's happening can you help me um because unfortunately a lot of times the online resources are outdated right and sometimes you need immediate help and so to me that's a huge Pro for little green light so some more on little green light is that it does have an easy interface um I find that it is user friendly I've heard from other executive directors that they too believe that it is very user friendly it allows you to send acknowledgments which is super important especially after you've had donors you know give to you you want to be able to say thank you right you want to be able to do that in a systemized way you know and so that's really key um it does have the ability to provide customized reporting and for you to track fundraising efforts and what I will say is that it does integrate with QuickBooks so that is a plus if that is something that you need um but again remember think about what it is that you're trying to accomplish um it is more so I believe for smaller organizations those that don't have a very robust or um complex fundraising strategy so you also want to consider that before you choose to go this route the second tool that we're going to talk about is kind for and I'm gonna uh take a break and pause right here I'm on the accounting side right so some of the things that I may deem useful easy can be relative right because I am one tech savvy but also what I need is going to be a bit different than what you need so these recommendations or these these this review is not only based off of my experience it's also based off of feedback quite a bit that I have either received read researched online spoken to executive director so it's not just my it's not from solely just my opinion so I want I do want to put that out there because like I mentioned with little green light you know I've heard a number I've been told from a number of executive directors how easy it is to use and how much they enjoy but I also know those same executive directors are running smaller organizations right and so naturally you draw the conclusion right so break over let's get back to kind food so kindful is the second software we're going to talk about its base price is 119 a month so it's a little bit more expensive and there is no free trial and so that was a little disappointing because again sometimes you want to just test out the waters you don't want to have to fully commit you want to date it a little bit before you get married right I'd like to see from kindful more real-time support for for a company or a tool that you know is cloud-based you know it already is something that's operating in this digital space and so it has support through like on-demand webinars they have um video tutorials they have a Blog but again a lot of this requires you to kind of do your own digging and researching and hoping that there's an article or some type of support out there for the issue that you're having versus being able to kind of contact directly and so didn't love that so now some features about kindful if you are an organization that is running campaigns consistently sometimes running multiple campaigns like at the same time or you might be doing like a b testing kindful is um could could be a really big or really good um solution because you get unlimited donation in like crowdfunding pages and so it is good if you have kind of like a complex or very consistent giving campaign situation going on it also has company gift matching right so that way you know companies can have their employees give to the organization of their choice and that can be managed through kindful they have mobile giving this is something that's really key because people do a lot of things from their phone and some of the solutions that are available available now in the donor management realm still have this mobile giving piece it's on they have online giving but not mobile and nowadays you see everybody is doing everything from their phone so something to consider overall all I will say castle seems a bit more tech savvy and that is also possibly you know honorable mention they were purchased by Bloomberg who was a bigger software right a bigger player in the space and so naturally kindful kind of has more more resources and so they do have a they are a bit more digitally Savvy as it relates to the things that you can do with their platform and with the um the giving Solutions and so up to you but not bad but again you might want to think about um what you need and also what your budget is the last one we're going to talk about is called Network for good their base price is a hundred dollars a month and they do offer a free trial so you can test drive the car before you choose to buy the support resources are go they go kind of hand in hand with kindful um I'd like to see more live you know support but they have a podcast um I'll admit I did check and the podcast doesn't seem to be updated regularly I know personally I'm a podcast listener and I like new episodes every week and they don't have that um they have webinars and events they have a Blog but again that is to me um kind of outdated given you know 2023 I'd like to see some kind of live chat feature or the ability to contact the team um directly and um I didn't I didn't see that um and so you might want to think about that one of the main features that they do have that I love is as it relates to donor Communications you don't only have to send like acknowledgments or communication via like text email or like written communication they also have the ability for you to send video Communications which is another way for you to in this Digital World tap into the person who is giving right like being able to send personalized video where they can see your face they can hear what you have to say um really nice touch and so something something to think about they have targeted you know mailing lists which really leans into these if your organization that is heavily marketing right you have have a marketing person a marketing department and you guys really hone in on trying to do marketing campaigns where you're garnering donors right something to absolutely consider um I'd say the functionality is a little bit limited it gave me the the the database itself gave me a little bit outdated um but for some when it's outdated it's easy to um navigate and so it's a plus that has a free trial so you can actually check out um the database and the functionality to see if it's something that comes easy to use you know for yourself it might work for you the main dislike or con that I hear um from executive directors is that they like more customized reporting the ability to reporting and so you have to think about where data management and the type of data that you you use and like to come um gather on on your team um the type how much how complex um because if that is important to you right then naturally this might not be a tool for you so you want to think about that now again this was only three donor management twos there are a ton right and so you have to think about size naturally but you also really want to think about your funding sources um and what it is that you're trying to convey and do as it relates to donors that will help you to determine at least an initial draft of the software that you want to look into that you want to try that you maybe want to ask about get referred um you know get referrals from other executive directors but you'll have a starting point versus trying to just draw straws from anywhere you end up getting a software that you either don't need or won't use right and so again hope this was helpful if you have any more questions let me know again I love it when you guys give me suggestions and so if you'd like to make some suggestions on other videos you'd like to see please do so and I will add them to our cue I'll see you guys in the next video foreign