Embrace the slump: 5 reasons to add software for fundraising in the summer

As the weather heats up, donations tend to slow down before surging again during fall and end-of-year giving season. It’s normal to feel stressed about the slow season of giving, but these quieter months can be the perfect time to plan your fundraising strategy for the new year, determine your budget and evaluate new technologies.

Read on to discover five reasons you should be evaluating and securing new fundraising software for your nonprofit or school this summer.

Reason 1: It’s time to plan for fall giving campaigns

Once the end of the school year rolls around (for schools) and the slow period of many nonprofits, fundraising teams start to feel the pressure around reaching year-end fundraising goals. Use this slower season to research and evaluate new fundraising software, familiarizing yourself and your team with it prior to the busy giving season. 

Take advantage of free software demos and trials to ensure their features align with your requirements. Document exactly how you will plan to leverage this new technology ahead of any fall giving initiatives, assigning out roles to team members for implementing, onboarding and ongoing management of the new platform. 

Reason 2: Stop putting off donor data clean-up!

Who doesn’t enjoy a donor data clean-up? Summer provides a great opportunity to clean up donor databases in general. But when you’re considering new fundraising software, it’s the perfect time to assess and organize your database to ensure it’s set up for a smooth transition upon implementation. 

Use the downtime of the off-season to fill in any gaps in donor data like phone numbers, email addresses, and giving history. Do a thorough assessment of active and inactive donors to determine whether or not their records should be archived before migrating the donors into a new database. Taking stock of existing donor data and cleaning it up prior to implementing new fundraising software sets you up for donor engagement success in the long run. 

Reason 3: Team members have more bandwidth

While allowing your team a little breathing room during the summer lull is a good practice for team morale, summer is also a great opportunity to integrate new software into their workflows. 

For education advancement teams and nonprofit teams alike, most team members find themselves running at full speed most of the year to hit aggressive giving and engagement goals. But with a lull in fundraising events and campaigns, fundraisers can spend a bit more time evaluating technology needs, researching solutions, attending platform demos, and taking it for a test run before weaving it into their daily roles.

Reason 4: Fundraising software for next year’s strategy

Obviously, your ultimate goal for implementing new software for fundraising is to boost giving and hit increasingly ambitious goals. Adding fundraising software during the summer months can directly inform your entire strategy for the year ahead (which you’re likely in the process of planning this time of year!) Once you’ve decided on a fundraising platform for your nonprofit or school, you can take its use cases into consideration for how to leverage it in various parts of the donor journey. 

For example, an AI-powered fundraising platform can scale donor portfolio management. In your yearly strategy, you would document which team member or members would leverage the software on a daily basis to streamline portfolio management.

Another example is a fundraising video messaging tool. During strategic planning, determine how and when you’ll use video to connect with donors or constituents; Will you use it to invite donors to upcoming events? Will you send donors thank-you videos when they have given a gift over $500?

Reason 5: Stay ahead of the curve 

It’s increasingly challenging to engage and retain donors. Another challenge many fundraising organizations are experiencing in parallel is that of staff turnover. To prove the point, a stark 46% of fundraising professionals said they plan to leave their current roles within two years. Adding new fundraising software during the quieter time of year can serve two purposes; It inspires staff to up-level their skills and be more productive while actually saving hours spent on manual tasks, and it takes your donor engagement strategy to a new level. 

Implementing new tools in your tech stack ensures you stay innovative and helps you reach both your external fundraising goals by reaching more donors more effectively, as well as your internal goals of fundraiser retention and job satisfaction. What a win!

Beat the heat & optimize your donor experience this summer

Just because summer is usually slow-down time for fundraising teams doesn’t mean you need to slow down too. Use the summer months to evaluate your software needs, plan ahead for fall and new year campaigns, and train up staff. Fundraising software for nonprofits and schools is designed to help your team work smarter, so use the quieter summer months to assess and test-drive new tools and get ready for a successful end-of-year and year ahead. 

Interested in taking a tour of Gravyty’s end-to-end donor engagement and fundraising platform? Contact us today.