Getting your executive director or upper management on-board to adopt new software technology can be difficult. Between the associated costs, time spent transferring data and the learning curve involved, many nonprofit executive directors will keep outdated technology (or no technology) indefinitely. In case you need more fodder to convince your leadership team that new technology is for you, here’s another reason you may not have thought of yet: It’s good for the environment, too! With Earth Day coming up tomorrow, it’s great to remind ourselves that being environmentally friendly should go beyond just one day of the year. And, believe it or not, technology, like a donor management system, can help you do that. How?
Consider your current donor management system and the processes you use to manage donor information. How much of it is on spreadsheets? In files? Imagine the paper you could save if all of your donor data was in one place. No, we’re not talking about filing cabinets (*gasp*), we’re talking about an electronic place. A donor management system stores information about all of your donors so that it’s available at your fingertips. Whether you need to find a donor’s phone number to give them a call about an upcoming event, pull together a list of donors for a mail-merge, segment your donors based on commonalities, keep notes about conversations you’ve had, enter donations or pledges or run reports, this can all be done without ever having to open up a physical folder.
Part of going green is reducing the amount of paper that your organization is using. Going from paper to electronic not only increases efficiency, but instills green habits at your nonprofit that you can continue to build off of by implementing software with your donor management system and further reducing paper usage.
How has your nonprofit taken steps to reduce its environmental footprint? How are you celebrating the earth this Earth Day? Share with us in the comments below!