With Ramadan coming ever closer, we know many charities have already started planning their fundraising strategy. In light of the importance of this month, we’ve been working very hard to improve key features in Engage to maximise the opportunities for fundraising.
Below are 5 upcoming Engage CRM features to keep an eye out for:
1. Automated/Scheduled Giving
Automated giving is the process of collecting donations at regular intervals in a month, for example the last 10 consecutive nights of Ramadan. This also includes varying the amounts that are collected on different days.
This has seen considerable growth recently, with a number of charities even expanding this to other times of the year. We are currently finalising this function across our two platforms;
- The Engage CRM – The donation entry screen in Engage will be updated to allow entry and management of scheduled donations directly on the CRM. This also includes the ability to import automated giving setup via your charity’s website. You can decide the duration of the giving and there will even be the option to select odd/even day splits – perfect for Ramadan giving!
- Our custom websites – For customers using an N3O built website, the option will be available to embed this functionality into your charity’s website. This will be fully integrated with the CRM, ensuring automatic import of donations on to the donor record. Please contact us for further details.
There are a number of advantages to manage automated giving from within the Engage CRM;
- Ensures you retain exclusive ownership of your donors’ data.
- Reduced processing fees.
- Automatic recording of donations and their intended purpose without the need for complex data import post Ramadan.
- The ability to manage automated giving via telephone and in-response to email queries.
- Integrated Gift Aid claims and better income reconciliation.
2. Feedback functionality (water wells, olive trees etc)
Many charities offer the ability to donate for a specific item and provide donors with a bespoke feedback report for their donation. For example, a donor could donate towards building a water well or procuring a wheelchair and subsequently receive a bespoke report. Think of these as mini projects.
The next major beta-release of Engage includes functionality allowing you to capture and manage these donations from the point of entry, to instruction to overseas offices or partners. This covers entry, generation, approval and automatic dispatch of feedback reports.
The feedbacks module will have the following features:
- An in-built workflow which allows you to either individually approve or bulk auto-approve reports before they are sent.
- A designated donation form capturing custom information about the donor.
- Your own branded feedback reports which can be sent via email or post (PDF).
- The ability to attach additional certificates or letters for donors upon completion/payment.
These can be easily marketed as charity gifts and can be incorporated on our own website platform to be fully integrated with the CRM for automated processing.
Customers using our N3O Umbraco sites who would want to inbuild this functionality when released, please contact us.
3. Advanced Income Attribution
Based on customer feedback, we are adding the ability to specify custom attribution for donations and sponsorships.
This basically allows you to directly record the fundraiser, department, event etc responsible for generating income.
This functionality can be tailored to your organisations reporting priorities. We will be reaching out to all customers in due course and offering workshops to assist in aligning your Engage setup to your organisation’s needs.
Combined with automated attribution via recorded donor interactions, this function should allow your fundraising team to gain deeper insights into which marketing activities are working best and generating the most income.
4. Call centre
Our long-awaited call centre module will shortly be landing in Engage (we’ve had a number of competing priorities during this time!). We’re hoping the call centre will be second to none in providing a fully integrated way for your donor care team to reach out to donors both for fundraising campaigns as well as administrative purposes.
Our call centre will manage both inbound and outbound calling and will sync directly with the lists function to allow you to create bespoke calling lists. The teams function will help segment your different campaigns allowing you to focus call efforts. For example, you can target donors in multiple ways for:
- Sponsorship renewal campaigns
- Ramadan upsell campaigns
- Regular giving campaigns
- And more…
This has historically been a major fundraising module for a number of our long-standing clients. In the event your charity does not currently operate a call centre, this feature may present a new fundraising opportunity that you have not explored.
5. *Sneak Peak* – Accounts portal
We couldn’t help teasing a hidden gem 😊. Though maybe after Ramadan, but one which is sure to retrieve significant income for our clients. Our portal and forms will be a self-service feature which allows your donors to manage their updates and donations.
You can retrieve different types of reports and prompt donors to update;
- Failed payments – where a direct debit fell through or a card was declined.
- Sponsorships expiring – where they paid a one-off annual amount and there are 30 days remaining.
- Consent preferences – view their history and make amends.
- Gift aid preferences – e.g. donors with an unspecified preference on your system.
Once these reports are generated, a bespoke form can be sent to their email to allow them to update information.
Having a systemised approach to follow up with current donors is a major source of fundraising. One of our clients coordinated a donor team follow up which retrieved approx. £80,000 simply by chasing up expiring orphan sponsorships in a methodical manner (approx. 200 orphans).
For more information on any of the above or for a bespoke demo, please visit us on www.n3o.ltd
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