Best Form Platform to Automate More Field Data from Donation Forms into Raiser's Edge that People Have Used?

Amanda Hopkins · March 27

Hi Everybody!

I am looking for some suggestions about the best form creation platforms that work well with Raiser's Edge, and am currently looking at FormAssembly and Jotform. Would love to hear people's experiences with those and other platforms. The native Raiser's Edge form does not allow enough flexibility with the number of fields and specific fields available for our current needs, and there are not current plans to increase this functionality. Also, everything coming in needs to be approved in batches, and I am looking to streamline this process with perhaps just one reconciliation process at the end of the month. So for each donor form, there will be in the range of 10-20 field values we will want to record in the gift record automatically. I am also looking for something cost effective, but it can be somewhere in the middle. Probably just 1-2 team members will actually be in the platform using it. Could really use some guidance on how to make our gift processing, specifically online gift processing via forms - including recurring gifts - more efficient, including eliminating the batch review process and doing that review in one step in one report. Thanks again, Everyone! Amanda

Ben Regier · March 31

I've used Formstack (now Intellistack) and Jotform extensively. Both are good at what they do. I like how Formstack structures their data in their API and in their Power Automate connector, and their field logic is better than Jotform's. Jotform has a lot more field types and supports multi-lingual forms, but their Power Automate connector isn't very well thought through, so when I need to run flows off of their forms I use API calls instead.

Of course, as Alex mentioned, you can't use BBMS as your payment processor on either of those platforms. PayPal and Stripe are common choices.

Evan Webb · April 2

Amanda, what we do is we use RE NXT Optimized Forms. We create duplicate forms for every e-mail we send. RE will record the Donation Form name as an attribute, so later I can distinguish which e-mail a donation came with.

For fixing all the fields you want to change, what I do is an extract-transform-load operation after approving a batch. I export the batch data to a CSV, make the changes quickly in Excel, and then reimport into the database.

As Alex mentioned, you really want to make a donation form quick and snappy to complete. Every additional field or click is going to people losing focus and leaving. I use Jotform a lot, but would not use it for donations. That said, you can add Tribute information and Fund dropdowns in an RE NXT Optimized Form. I highly recommend them.

Alex Wong · March 27

this will require quite a bit of custom work, which can be done via SKY API and automation (i.e. Power Automate). The most difficult part of this is going to be around payment process, which you will subject your org to PCI Compliance needs that you would otherwise not need to worry about when using a donation platform.

Generally you wouldn't want to ask too much question on donation form as it hinders conversion, what do you want to add?

Amanda Hopkins · March 27

Hi Alex! Thank you for getting back to me about my question! Ok, so the current built in form accommodates the Fund, Campaign, and Appeal fields. We also need data on a Package field recorded (this field captures data on subsets of the audience). Additionally, as part of the batch review process, we need to go into the grid in large batches of recurring gifts and manually select Do Not Post, Do Not Receipt, and often Do Not Acknowledge (because we cannot assign a template with default field settings to auto-created batches coming in via the native forms and BBMS payment processor). I am also open to other ideas (e.g., through a marketing application like Campaign Monitor) about how to best capture the donor information about donor segments like new donor, LYBUNT, SYBUNT etc. (e.g., that all get emailed on, for example, a Spring Appeal). The workaround we came up with this past year, absent of an integrated email platform and more form fields, was the use of differentiated forms (the Package values are put in manually later as batches are reviewed and approved). Again, totally open to thoughts on how to accomplish this. Most of my experience is in Salesforce and I have been transitioning to Raiser's Edge this past year. A lot applies but there are some key differences. Also, any thoughts on a payment processor that might work well? Thanks again! Amanda

Lee Grisham · April 1

@Amanda Hopkins there's a lot going on in this question and I think we need to take a step back. Are you looking for an all in one solution to your problem that will allow you do design DONATION forms? Or are you more looking for a survey/questionnaire type form that doesn't take donations? Like @Alex Wong mentioned, the more questions you have on a donation form, the lower the conversion rate, so I'd go simple on that with more back-end programming that can set the defaults you need to record on gifts.

I've really enjoyed using Fundraise Up for donation forms due to their flexibility in data collection and the depth of the data available, but they don't natively integrate with RE anymore, so you'd have to set up an import off of their export file, which is very customizable! You could automate parts of that depending on if you can use Power Automate or Omatic/Importacular. I'd rather program as much as possible on the front end, which is why I like this method. If you need to do it after a gift is made based on what a donor does on the form, that could take a little more manual work, but still possible. I think any way you go about it will require a bit of programming.

I'm interested as to why you record the LYBUNT/SYBUNT info on a gift record. Just to record a snapshot of where the donor was when the gift was made?

Amanda Hopkins · April 1

Hi Ben and Lee!

Thank you so much for taking the time to get back to me on my question! Lee, great question on the LYBUNT/SYBUNT and New Donor information, and I can see how that might be puzzling. So because we do not as of yet have an integrated marketing application (just unintegrated Mail Chimp), we have historically used a custom "Package" field to record things like whether a gift was made in response to direct mail or email. Basically to quickly get a breakdown of New/LYBUNT/SYBUNT and email/direct mail donors (as well as some other segments) on some big campaigns over the past 6 months, we used that Package field (recording the value based on a code on the remit slips or the name of the online form). I realize the New/LYBUNT/SYBUNT information is also data one can pull off a donor report if not a marketing one. In the past I have used more one form with picklists and dependent fields, but that did mean the donor filled out more fields (e.g., what program they wished to donate to, if not donating to the general fund; or who the donation was in honor of, etc.). To answer your other question, I am looking for donation form specific functionality. We use PayPal and Stripe in other contexts, so Ben, one of those could totally work as a payment processor with Jotform or Formstack. Lee, I'm also curious to learn more about your experience with Omatic - I've heard good things there. Also, has anyone used Luminate for forms?

Thank you so much!!

Amanda

Amanda Hopkins · April 2

Ah, got it! Thanks so much for your feedback, Evan!!!

Best Form Platform to Automate More Field Data from Donation Forms into Raiser's Edge that People Have Used?

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