eCommerce: Let Your eTapestry Database Do the Work for You!

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A lot of things have changed in the past 15 years in the fundraising world.  In my prior life as a director of development, things like “online giving” and “email appeals” were thought to be one of two things: either a passing fancy or the wave of the future.  Depending on who you talked to, online giving was going to save us all thousands of dollars in direct mail & telemarketing costs or be the biggest flop since New Coke.

Thankfully, online giving has fared better than New Coke, but to think it’s solved all your fundraising challenges is untrue.  Instead, online giving has become an additional spoke in the wheel of donor development.  Just like investors diversify their investment strategies, so should development offices diversify their appeals & solicitations.

In that vein, eTapestry has made it easy for you to incorporate online giving to your suite of options for donors to support your mission.  We believe so strongly that online giving should be an integral piece of how you should be appealing to your donors, we’ve provided you 50 DIY (DIY means Do It Yourself-for those of you who aren’t enthusiasts of home improvement shows) online giving forms, FREE!  With the help of a few training videos, and some point and click, you can create a page for online giving.

But, Amy, where can I find this?” you ask.

Simple.  Click on Management, then click on DIY forms. For you visual types, it looks like this:

Amy 1

You can create your online giving page to have the look and feel of your current website by adding images, changing the colors, and even changing fonts.  eTapestry has created some templates for you to start with, or you can start from scratch and create your own. You can create up to 50 forms, and 10 of them can be live on your website at a time.  So go ahead and play!  Nothing will be visible on your website until you make it live.

Additionally, you have the option of making your donor page its own page that acts as a pop up page, or you can have it embedded in your existing web page.  The HTML code for this will be provided to you; you do not need any coding knowledge!  If I can do these DIY forms, trust me, anyone can!

Ok, Amy, but how do we manage the data entry for these new gifts?” you ask.

Again, simple.  eTapestry’s DIY Forms were created to save you time by having seamless integration with your database.  We match based on three fields – name, address and email.  If two out of three fields match, then the gift attaches to an existing record. If less than two fields match, then a new record is created.

But how will I know a gift has been made?” you wonder silently.

A confirmation email can be sent to the representative at your organization and to the donor.  You can set this up under the Management tab, click on My Organization, then eCommerce (a fancy word for online giving).  You’ll see a page that will let you set up email addresses for these confirmations.

Amy 2You may wish for the confirmation email the donor receives to come from the executive director, but you want your development director to get the notice that a gift was made.  You may even wish to have those confirmations to go to a general mailbox that other staff can access too.  All things to think about as you’re designing your new page.

“Online giving is for the younger crowd. Our donors are older, they won’t give online!”

Don’t sell your older constituents short!  In a 2013 Blackbaud survey, while 50% of Generation Y (those aged 18-32) report giving online in the past few years, more than 40% of Generation X (those aged 33-48) and 40% of Baby Boomers (those aged 49-67) have given online in the past two years.  These are all considerable increases from our 2010 study!  Matures (those aged 68+) lag a tad compared to the younger groups but still 27% say they have given online in the past two years!  Did I happen to mention that Mature’s also have the highest average annual gift?

Believe it or not, online giving works in conjunction with your direct mail appeals.  You may be engaging your donor with a slick piece of mail, yet more and more they are going to your website to make their transaction.  Make sure you’re providing that option while they are inspired!

I hope you’ll consider taking advantage of the functionality at your fingertips.  Let your eTapestry database do the work for you, and don’t let your organization’s mission become New Coke!

For help on getting started on DIY forms, contact eTapestry’s Customer Relationship Management team at eTapRelationshipManagers@blackbaud.com

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