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Digital receipt maker for non-profit organizations

When you are starting a non-profit  you might not have or know about   the different types of technology that you  might need in order to successfully launch,   fundraise, and grow your audience! So in  this video I'm going to share four common   non-profit startup challenges and the  corresponding Technology Solutions that   you're going to want to keep an eye out  for to address those challenges. [Music]   Welcome or welcome back! My name is Amber Melanie  Smith. I'm really excited I have some good stuff   for you here in this video I'm a non-profit  founder myself and also a YouTuber who makes   videos all about creating a social impact whether  that's through starting a non-profit a social   enterprise socially conscious business or being  a leader in your community I hope that you find   this video useful and helpful as you think through  your own non-profit or social impact journey and   don't forget to give it a like And subscribe to  my channel for more content like this if you're   in the process of starting a non-profit and need  a little extra guidance I do have online courses   at my website foundertofulltime.com that you  can check out to provide some support. Okay   so let's get into these four common non-profit  startup challenges and these are challenges that   I hear pretty frequently about from a lot  of you in the audience and people that I'm   familiar with in my own networks so the fourth  challenges that I'm going to talk through today   are one starting your fundraising efforts and  growing your donor base especially from scratch   to communicating with your audience and growing  that audience three scheduling volunteers very   important and for setting up your accounting which  is also really important to stay sustainable and   be able to meet all of those requirements and  financial reporting needs for the IRS okay let's   start with challenge number one that starting  your fundraising effort Challenge and growing   your donor base possibly from from zero zero  donors okay so when you're first starting out   odds are that you're talking to a lot of different  people in the community you're raising awareness   about your cause you're sharing your message  and you really need a way to figure out how to   um convert the people who express interest  in your mission into possible future donors   you need a way to collect contact information  you need a way to um stay in contact and then   eventually make an ask so that you can maybe  get a donation from those folks if you meet   someone once and they express an interest in  your cause but then you don't have a way of   staying in touch with them that is a big missed  opportunity there because you might never hear   from them again and if you're not staying top of  mind for them and staying in regular communication   even if they liked your cause they might forget  about your non-profit and you don't want that   so you have that one problem where you need to  be collecting contact information and building   relationships and then the other side of this  issue of starting your fundraising is kind of   a logistics issue and that is you just need the  mechanism to collect donations on your website and   track those donations so the technology solution  that you're going to need to look for for this   particular problem is what's called a CRM this  is a customer relationship management software   system think of it as a database where all of  your prospective and active and current donors   are all in there you can manage their contact  information you can put in notes about your   latest interactions with them some CRMs even allow  you to send emails through the CRM directly to the   people in your your donor database and it will  help you kind of get insights you'll be able to   see what are the types of campaigns that people  are donating most to what are they responding   well to what are they not responding well to  and stuff like that a lot of CRMs also have   uh features that allow you to collect donations  right on your non-profits website so if you can   find one that combines both the front-facing  ability to collect donations and the back end   ability to track and and see all your insights  then that's the perfect solution for you some   of the bigger or more well-known CRMs that you  might have heard of include CRMs like Salesforce,   Classy DonorPerfect or Bloomerang. When looking  for a great CRM for non-profit startups though   you want to be sure that it will provide ways to  like I said easily collect those donations online   automatically record those donations into your  database and into the donor profiles and ideally   also easy ways to acknowledge your supporters and  this is a great segue introducing the sponsor of   today's video GiveWP! GiveWP is a great technology  solution for the challenge that we're talking   about here starting your fundraising and growing  your donor base so if you're a non-profit startup   or a non-profit of any size definitely check  them out I know that this is something that I   personally struggled with back when I was starting  my non-profit was finding an affordable solution   that would allow me to collect those online  donations and manage the donor relationships   in a way that would really help my donor base  grow so I wish that I'd had a solution like   GiveWP when I was first getting started but let's  take a deeper look into what they do GiveWP is   a highly rated WordPress donation plugin that  easily lets your non-profit collect manage and   grow your donations it's currently being used  by some of the most well-known non-profits in   the world non-profits like the Boys and  Girls Club YMCA Habitat for Humanity and   more I know there's a decent chance that your  non-profit organization's website is already   built using Wordpress like mine was that's because  WordPress Powers something like 37 of websites on   the internet so installing and using the GiveWP  WordPress plugin is going to be a breeze getting   started with the free GiveWP plugin is super easy  just log in to your non-profit organization's   WordPress dashboard go to plugins and add new  plugin then you can search for the GiveWP plugin   it's already got over a hundred thousand active  installations so you can click now to   get started here's why I think GiveWP is a  great option for any non-profit but especially   startups there is a ton that you can do with the  free version you can create unlimited donation   forms for various campaigns or projects of course  accepting payments thinking donors on your website   with a donor wall I really love that feature  managing your donors through donor dashboards so   you can see who they are what they've donated to  maybe some of the habits that they have as donors   this will help you get some of those insights and  data that you need to really grow your donor base   and get more donations another cool feature is  they have this form grid so if you have multiple   ways people can donate or multiple projects at  once people can kind of choose which one that   they want to do there's even features that let  you record offline donations like when you're   at an event and someone hands you cash or check  for your non-profit and of course managing those   donor receipts and confirmations is a huge huge  big deal and then of course with the affordable   GiveWP add-ons you can really step up your game  and grow your donor base faster with features   like automating recurring donations or for example  texting to give or peer-to-peer fundraisers custom   fields and Integrations with your email marketing  software so you can automate adding your donors to   your newsletter and staying in touch check out the  link to see some of the pricing and I will tell   you that this is a pretty pretty low cost and it's  a cost for the whole year okay so check out my   link below this video to go ahead and GiveWP, give  give GiveWP a try today for free or you can check   out some of their affordable add-on packages also  and then come back to this video and let me know   what your experience was like what you thought  about it because I would love to hear from you   on that challenge number two is communicating  with your growing or hopefully growing audience   this connects to the fundraising challenge because  they're they're all connected right your audience   is the group of people that could become your  future donors if you manage the relationships well   so like I said you know when you're first starting  out you're going out you're talking to lots of   people and hopefully getting people excited  about what you do so just like you would need   a fundraising CRM to be able to collect donor  or potential donor information and track their   donations and sort of donor Behavior you need a  technology solution that will allow you to stay   in regular communication with your audience share  your stories share your impacts share upcoming   volunteer needs etc in the event that you're  fundraising CRM doesn't already have a feature   or you prefer to use a different solution outside  of your fundraising CRM what you're looking for   is an email marketing solution here and I want to  have the disclaimer that there are of course many   ways to stay in touch with your audience but you  should ideally do all of the ways if possible so   you should definitely be active on social media  also but an email marketing solution will allow   you to create attractive branded newsletters it  will allow you to share and track who opens those   newsletters which newsletters are the most popular  if there are certain topics that seem to inspire   people to open and click on the newsletters more  most email Marketing Solutions will do something   like that for you um intriguingly uh several new  email marketing um Solutions also include a text   or SMS feature and that is very helpful because  texts still have a 98 percent open rate so if you   can get people to opt in to receive text messages  from your organization then odds are you're going   to reach them even better than before for sending  newsletters or updates about your upcoming events   or volunteer opportunities there are a lot of  email Marketing Solutions on the market for   startups some affordable or even free solutions  might include MailChimp or Mailerlite or HubSpot   up to a certain number of subscribers before  they make you pay for those Solutions um so uh   check those out or if you know of others that have  really worked for you very well come back and let   me know what you're using too okay okay Challenge  number three is scheduling and communicating with   your volunteers I think we all know how amazing  volunteers can be volunteers are powering a   lot of amazing non-profit programming they're  helping with fundraising volunteers can support   skills-based tasks like supporting your accounting  or developing a marketing plan for you volunteers   serve on your board of directors volunteers can  help with shift-based opportunities like serving   meals at your soup kitchen or animal shelter so  there's a ton of things that volunteers can do but   without an easy streamlined way for volunteers  to sign up it's going to be hard to recruit   Volunteers in general recruit the right volunteers  so the volunteers who might have the right skills   for the specific task you need or are able to make  the certain type of commitment you need them to   um and also to keep them coming back and to  sort of track and log those those volunteer   hours if that is something you'd like to do for  your reporting so what you need is a volunteer   sign up or registration or scheduling software  solution um and when you're thinking about what   kind of volunteer management software you need  or want it's really important to first think   about the types of tasks that volunteers are  going to be helping your non-profit with is   it just shift based so that means you come for  a couple of hours on one day or maybe it's a   couple of hours per week it's a shift or is it  ongoing and flexible like the volunteer could   sign up and help out doing a task on their own  time whenever they want is it a skills based or   um sort of high level or professionalized sort of  volunteer opportunity like a board of directors   role that is going to need a different kind of  software solution or specific features as well   if you're going to hope to get the right fit and  save time on vetting volunteers who are just not   going to be a good fit in the first place there  are a ton once again of Volunteer Management   Solutions out there ranging in cost I'll share a  couple of free or very low cost examples just to   get you started but please do your research and  and think about what do you need in a volunteer   recruiting process do you need an application  do you need a background check do you need um   to have the volunteers answer specific questions  about their skills or you know their ability to   make a certain time commitment Etc um do they need  to have an interview so think about your process   um what in conjunction with thinking about  your software but some of the free or low-cost   solutions that are out there include um you know  the classic shift-based things like SignupGenius   or signup.com or even um CiviCRM is an open source  solution that can be customized to meet your needs   if you have someone on your team who's able to um  customize that technology for you that is a great   um open source solution if you need to have  volunteers fill out a form that you can   review like an application Jotform might be  a good free solution for you as well and all   of these have paid versions but they also have  free free versions too if you do have a budget   for this kind of software there are also so many  cool features that you can have in the software   things like volunteer calendar self-selection so  the volunteer can just go on your calendar and   just sign up themselves you'll have have to help  them at all and cancellations if they can't make   it automated email reminders to the volunteers the  ability to add a volunteer shift to your calendar   that always helps people remember to fulfill  their volunteer commitment um background checks   um and impact and hours tracking are all some  additional features that you might keep an eye   out for if you have a budget to spend on  a little bit higher end software solutions   that might have some of these features include  things like Volgistics, Volunteer Scheduler,   Scheduler Pro and there are tons of others out  there. Okay Challenge number four: managing   your accounting without necessarily having a  professional bookkeeper helping you here's why you   need this and I really advocate for even if you're  a new non-profit organization just starting up get   these systems and processes in place now you will  be so happy that you did you need a way to track   your finances to track your receipts your current  and projected expense expenditures and income not   only just because that's a good thing to do it's  a good practice for planning and and determining   how you're going to spend the money that comes  into your organization but you also are required   to you have to even as a small non-profit submit  Financial reports to the IRS each year you also   should be with your board of directors looking at  your finances on a regular basis quarterly monthly   Etc to just see how things are going and your  board Treasurer will often have a hand in   supporting that review if you were to suddenly and  unexpectedly be audited by the IRS you really want   to have all of these things in place place every  receipt scanned all pennies accounted for because   uh no joke if you fail an audit your non-profit  status could be at risk so for Technology   Solutions you really need some kind of bookkeeping  software in place even if it's just very basic   software it needs to have the basic functions of  recording and automating financial transactions   excuse me it needs to be able to categorize  the different types of expenditures like   was this office supplies was this um materials  you needed for one of your programs uh was this uh   software cost was this your facilities rental what  was this cost it needs to be able to categorize   those things so that it can generate reports  for you and your board of directors to look   at bonus points if this bookkeeping software can  also be cloud-based send and manage invoices and   be connected to your donation processing system  or fundraising CRM some of the most well-known   accounting systems out there are QuickBooks and  Blackbaud I did find a couple of free or low-cost   uh bookkeeping Solutions out there for especially  for non-profits so you might take a look at also   Zipbooks has a free version money minder and  software for non-profits have bookkeeping versions   that are both under 200 for the whole year which  is pretty great so I'd love to hear from you now   what are some other challenges that you're facing  as a non-profit startup and what what Technology   Solutions might help you face these challenges  or if you found some great Technology Solutions   that you want to share with the rest of our  change maker Community here drop those in the   comments below as I mentioned before if you're  starting a non-profit and need some support with   how what the steps are to do that or creating a  sustainable fundraising plan you can check out   my website foundertofulltime.com for some online  courses that I have there I also have a newsletter   for non-profit leaders and change makers of  all kinds that you can subscribe to at the   link below this video finally I have a Facebook  group called Change the World or Bust that has   4,000 plus people from all over the world in  it now, it's been amazing to watch it grow.   But we're all sharing how we're trying to make  an impact and helping each other along the way,   so come on and join us there too! Once again I'm  Amber Melanie Smith and I really appreciate you   watching today! Don't forget to give my video a  like and subscribe to the channel - see you later!