Like many other nonprofits, the month of November in 2001 was a difficult one for Baptist Children's Home and Family Services.

The first full month of fundraising data post-Sept. 11 was out and the numbers did not look good. The nonprofit's direct mail efforts were negatively impacted by the terrorist attack and the subsequent anthrax scares. This was a low blow to the Illinois-based Baptist Children's Home, which is dependent on donations for 80 percent of its budget to provide shelter and family services to communities throughout the state.

Doug Morrow, the nonprofit's director of development, had to quickly figure out how acute the problem was and report back to his executive director. On the surface, Baptist Children's Home fundraising from direct mail was off by 33 percent. But without a deeper analysis, Morrow couldn't tell how dire the consequences of the direct mail drop off might be.

Using eTapestry, the nonprofit's Web-based fundraising system, Morrow was quickly able to drill down into his reports and discover who was still making donations.

"I was able to isolate what group we were missing," Morrow said. "It was easy to figure out that the donors who weren't giving then were impulse donors who would normally respond to an appeal. Our core donors, with deep commitments, were still giving."

In addition to running detailed reports, Morrow likes eTapestry's Web-based functionality, which allows staff to access and update fundraising information in real-time from wherever they have access to the Internet and a Web browser.

That's a far cry from Morrow's early days in fundraising when development staff wrote contact reports, recorded them to tape, and sent the tape to the central office to be transcribed in the database.

Through eTapestry, Baptist Children's Home has begun to send out online acknowledgement letters and thank-you notes, which saves on postage costs.

"Folks tend to pay attention to the thank-you note," Morrow said. "We put hyperlinks in that allow them to download remittance forms for their next gift and a hyperlink to take them back to the Web site to make their gift electronically. I think one of the things donors like about it is the speed."

It's cost-savings like these that have allowed the nonprofit's development staff to grow, Morrow said.

"It really has been a terribly efficient way for us to grow our agency," Morrow said. "I've been intimately involved in conversions and decisions to go to various systems. By far, this is the most impressive application that I've used."