Small group grows with help from web-based tool

Maureen Macdonald's nonprofit, Moonlight Cultural Foundation, was without phone service for a month after it moved offices.

A corroded line kept the foundation's frustrated staff of two from operating a fully functional office to support the efforts of the Moonlight Stage Productions, an outdoor theater and an indoor playhouse run by the City of Vista in California.

Cell phone service didn't reach inside her office, forcing the executive director and her assistant to brave the elements to talk to donors and vendors. But technology woes didn’t stop the checks from pouring in during the nonprofit's annual patron drive.

"Fortunately, technology issues did not keep us from getting our jobs done," Macdonald said. At night, Macdonald accessed eTapestry, her Web-based donor management system, from her home Internet connection to keep up with recording and managing donations. "It was wonderful. Having access to databases through the Internet was the greatest thing ever developed. We thought we would lose gifts this year and our budget would be impacted due to this uncommunicative time, but we ended the year with a small profit," Macdonald said.

When she began searching for a donor database system four years ago, Macdonald said a Web-based system was not even on her mind. As a hospital foundation veteran, she had used Fund-Master as her donor database management system. A colleague told her that management team members from Master Software Corp., the maker of Fund-Master, had founded eTapestry.

Macdonald also discovered that eTapestry was providing their base service free to organizations with fewer than 500 records.

"That was the big decision-maker right there—not having to make a big purchase to get started," Macdonald said. "Why not try it? I think it's great, and eTapestry is maintaining it all. I don't have to worry about it."

Since eTapestry opened its doors in 1999, it has assisted many small nonprofits with a very economical way to manage their donor and gift records. With a minimal investment for training and support services, and the base service still offered free to groups with fewer than 500 records, eTapestry gives nonprofits the professional tools that would normally costs thousands of dollars to purchase and maintain.

"It's a mutually beneficial program," said eTapestry COO Steve Rusche. "It certainly helps the smallest nonprofits gain access to high-quality tools for managing their operations at little expense. There is no large upfront purchase of hardware or software needed. Just a small investment in training and support and they can be successful. eTapestry grows with the organization and allows them to add features and services as the need arises. We believe eTapestry allows organizations to focus more of their resources on their mission and less on their fundraising software."

Moonlight Cultural Foundation began its relationship with eTapestry with only about 200 records culled from old Excel spreadsheets. The theater has relied heavily on production fundraisers and corporate donations since it was first established as an outdoor theater in 1976. The bicentennial project began with a small stage and grass seating tiers.

Over the years, permanent seats, a stage house and technical improvements in lighting and sound have enhanced the appeal of the shows and allowed for winter and summer productions with such classics as “The Sound of Music," "Camelot," "The Music Man," "South Pacific" and "Oklahoma!" In a summer season alone, the outdoor theater hosts cumulative audiences of more than 50,000 and takes in sales of more than $700,000.

Since first cobbling together old records from the Excel spreadsheets, Macdonald has been able to establish more than 900 individual donor records in eTapestry.

Over the last few years, Macdonald said she has quickly trained several assistants in eTapestry. When she has questions, Macdonald said she gets a quick response from eTapestry’s support office.

"Someone is always there to help us," Macdonald said. "The turnaround time is good."

Macdonald said she has encouraged her board to use eTapestry, and one board member, also a nonprofit director, took that recommendation a step further and signed her own organization on with eTapestry.

"With eTapestry, it's easier to extract the information you need," said Macdonald. "At board meetings, we pull reports and give board members an update of the revenue at every meeting. When we used Excel, we weren’t sure if it was truly correct."

The Moonlight Cultural Foundation is a non-profit organization that supports programs of the City of Vista, CA, including Moonlight Stage Productions through fund-raising and development. Their mission is to promote philanthropy in North San Diego County for the performing arts at the Moonlight Amphitheatre, Avo Playhouse, and other theatrical and environmental community projects. www.moonlightstage.com

Story Image:

Make-A-Wish cuts processing time with eTapestry

While on the phone with a grateful donor, Sherrie, a radio request-a-thon volunteer, quickly typed the donor's request into the "comments" section of her Web-based form.

The caller was the mother of a child whose wish was granted by the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Indiana in 1997. Her son died two weeks after his wish was granted.

Not only did the mother want to donate $15 a month, but she also wanted to take her story to the radio air waves to motivate others to call in during the final hours of the annual Make-A-Wish Foundation Request-A-Thon.

Sherrie's comment from the mother instantly came up on the screen of another volunteer monitoring comments for song requests and challenges. The volunteer passed the information on to the Z99.5 deejay who called the mother and asked her to talk about her son on-air. She did with an outpouring of emotion that caused phone lines to light up.

That instant connection is a result of three types of communication-the telephone, the radio and the Internet-working in tandem—for the nonprofit's maximum benefit.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation got a glimpse of how well all three could work together when it first introduced its Web-based donor management system, eTapestry, to the request-a-thon volunteer pool in 2002.

That year, donors took down callers’ information on paper and handed it to another Make-A-Wish Foundation employee to run the donation through the credit card processor. Another employee entered the information into eTapestry.

"It was stressful, because the pace of donations always seemed to exceed the pace at which we could process the information, meaning tallying the total, running credit card donations manually, and inputting the donor’s information into our database," said Matt Ferch, Make-A-Wish director of public relations. "To have that streamlined not only made it easier and more accurate, but it made it a whole lot more fun. We could hang out and interact more with volunteers, the Wish families and radio staff."

After adding eTapestry's e-commerce module this year, the request-a-thon has been able to reduce the time it takes to process donations by at least half and fulfilled 40 wishes with the $216,741 it received in pledges. Make-A-Wish processed more than 1,900 donations in real time.

The fundraising event saved time because volunteers entered the donor information directly into the e-commerce form. Once they were done, credit card information was automatically processed and stored in eTapestry's database.

Volunteers manned the phones in an area known as the bullpen where about 10 desks, computers and phones were squeezed into a lively space decorated with photos of the children they were helping. A floor-to-ceiling tally, which included the child’s name and a wish description, recorded how much money they had raised and the number of wishes that will be granted.

As volunteers were talking to donors, they entered their name, address and payment information into eTapestry.

"What's nice about this is that we hit submit and it processes the order," said Robert Auman, a volunteer who has coordinated the request-a-thon's phone bullpen for five years.

Credit card and check transactions are completed while the caller is still on the phone.

"It's so easy to use," said Dana Zukanovich, a volunteer from Purdue University's Chi Omega sorority. "It takes less than five minutes to make a donation and I only received about five minutes of training to learn how to use eTapestry."

eTapestry has helped the foundation cut onsite staff time for the request-a-thon in half, Auman said.

"News from Tallyland," shouted Scott Sands, Z99.5 station manager, into a microphone set up in the bullpen to carry live commentary. Sands heralded the donation that put the tally over $165,345, granting the 30th wish of the request-a-thon to Logan, who wants to go to Disneyland.

Before eTapestry kept a running automatic tally, volunteers would keep interim totals by adding up the sheets volunteers filled out after they took donations, Auman said.

"I think we were even surprised at how smoothly it went," said Josh Esslinger, eTapestry e-commerce and Web developer who was on-hand for tech support. "It was neat to see their reaction about the amount of work eTapestry took off their shoulders."

eTapestry's e-commerce module can be added for a one-time set-up fee and an additional 10 percent of a nonprofit's base fee.

E-commerce program allows donors to give classes what they need

Eager first-graders giggled and groaned as they plucked and tweezed sought-after skulls and bones from regurgitated owl pellets to learn more about what owls eat.

The dissections are part of five hands-on interactive stations emphasizing critical thinking and problem solving in a woodland animals unit taught at Lawrence Township Schools' Forest Glen Elementary in Indianapolis. While the most popular workstation of the day, it's not a project the first-grade classes can afford to do every year.

"If we didn't have a special donation for this project, we would not have been able to provide this hands-on opportunity," said Judy Canfield, Forest Glen first-grade teacher. "Like school districts across the country, ours can't fund as many interactive projects as we would like."

The project was funded through donations to the district foundation’s WishList, an innovative e-commerce program developed by eTapestry, a Web-based nonprofit software company.

"We need to be investing more in classroom resources," said NEA spokeswoman Denise Cardinal. "Our members want classrooms that are inviting to students and bring learning alive. Those are extra expenses that school districts can’t afford to provide for teachers. Teachers are willing to go into their own pockets to provide resources to make these havens for students."

Some teachers even purchase coats, hats and gloves for students whose families can’t afford them, she said.

The NEA is working to make the $250 tax deduction for teacher out-of-pocket classroom expenses permanent to provide teachers some relief. The credit currently expires in 2005.

"Schools are having to account for the changes in the American family," Cardinal said. "A lot more demands are being put on schools and teachers to fill these needs, especially for students in low economic areas."

Schools and those who support them are increasingly turning to alternative sources of funding for basic needs.

Forest Glen was able to buy its owl pellets because an Internet-savvy mom made a classroom donation through the school township foundation. The program, called WishList, was first developed for Christie Love, executive director of the Lawrence Township School Foundation.

The Lawrence Township School Foundation noticed that teachers were increasingly asking for funding of "basic supplies," rather than grants for the innovative programming the foundation was established to support.

"We really wanted something we could do online that could become a community building piece," Christie Love said. "I knew there were so many people in the community who had good feelings about the school district and wanted to help, but they had no way to connect."

Love talked to her husband, Jay, CEO of eTapestry, a company that works with more than 4,000 nonprofit organizations. The eTapestry team developed the e-commerce solution that works similar to baby and bridal registries and created e-commerce abilities for the Lawrence Township School Foundation's Web site, www.msdltf.org.

"Parents, alumni and businesses can now donate items to school classrooms as easily and quickly as they buy gifts on Amazon.com," said Jay Love. "Donors can direct online donations to specific classrooms or pay for specific 'wish' items the classes have listed."

Classes and schools in Lawrence Township have asked for donations as large as a greenhouse and gymnasium air conditioning, to electronics such as digital cameras and scanners. Most of the classrooms also ask for everyday items like Post-It notes, plastic bags and poster boards.

Some large items, such as multi-use scanners, have already been purchased, said Christie Love.

The mother of one teacher ordered his classroom five magnifying glasses in honor of the teacher's birthday. An elementary school student, with permission to use her mother’s credit card, purchased a $3.40 hand sanitizer for her teacher to show her appreciation.

"I'm telling parents that instead of getting teachers another ceramic apple or an ornament for this holiday season, that they should think about using the WishList to buy them some school supplies for their classroom," said Christie Love.

For more information on WishList from eTapestry, contact them at 888-739-3827, email them at info@eTapestry.com, or visit them online at www.etapestry.com.

eTapestry provides more time for strategy

After converting her nonprofit to a Web-based donor management system, Tina Burdett is spending more time than ever on her donor database.

"I spend less than half the time I used to on mundane tasks," said Burdett, development director for the Center for Children & Families, Inc., based in Norman, Oklahoma. "But, now, there's so much more I can do."

In January 2003, Burdett switched her nonprofit, which specializes in providing support and counseling to children and their families, to eTapestry, a Web-based donor management system.

"I spend my time now on the more strategic analysis elements," Burdett said. "Having a database that allows me to do that is like a treat or a prize. It's more fun and it's much more productive in the long run."

Because eTapestry is so easy to use, Burdett can get help from volunteers and other staff members in dealing with basic mailing list information and setup. This gives her more time to forecast and analyze historical giving information.

"I like to analyze the rates of retention, percent of donors who gave, and how many donors have given in the last three of five years," Burdett said. "We couldn't even ask that information before. This new information affects us in how we communicate with our donors and cultivate them, and who we ask to do what."

Cultivation is of growing importance to the Center for Children & Families, which has recently adopted the Raising More Money model. The Center for Children and Families has taken advantage of Next Step,™ a customized version of eTapestry based on the Raising More Money process.

"It's been really useful to manipulate and capture the data the Raising More Money model requires. It has streamlined our efforts tremendously," Burdett said.

eTapestry's ease of use and its strong tech support are essential fundraising elements for Burdett's organization of 54 employees.

"We have a fairly typical social service agency staff," Burdett said. "Database management is not why we were hired."

Recently, Burdett said she spent literally less than one minute to train a computer-savvy board member how to enter contacts into eTapestry. He came back a week later and wanted to learn more. His next mission: queries.

Burdett said she feels secure that the board member can execute the queries necessary to identify the nonprofit's major donors so he can take them to lunch. Just to be safe, she has set parameters on his use so he can’t delete or access the mass update function.

The Center for Children & Families has made repeated use of eTapestry's tech support members.

"They are friendly and never condescending," Burdett said. "They respond promptly and as many times as it takes for you to understand the answer."

It's support like this that makes eTapestry an essential tool to achieve success in a social services nonprofit environment that increasingly relies on individual donors for support, Burdett said.

"To have a competitive edge in this environment, you need to take advantage of every tool that is available," Burdette said. "eTapestry is the best data management tool for us."

About the Center for Children & Families, Inc.
The Center for Children & Families, Inc., based in Norman, Okla., improves the lives of children through partnerships with families and communities. The organization provides education, support, advocacy, intervention and prevention programs for area children and families. For more information, go to:
http://www.csbi.org/ccfi/About/History.htm

About eTapestry
Founded in 1999, Indianapolis-based eTapestry is the first Web-based donor database and communications management system that rents its software to customers who access it over the Internet. Nonprofit organizations of all types and sizes using eTapestry.com do not pay the large upfront purchasing costs or the ongoing maintenance and support contracts typically paid in the purchase of more traditional software. For more information, go to www.eTapestry.com.

Nonprofit's international staff works well with Web-based system

Two years ago during a trip with her church to Russia, Anne Robertson was touched by Lena Zolkova, a quiet 14-year-old girl she met in an orphanage in Makariev, a half-day's drive from Moscow.

Anne and Lena developed a special connection and Anne became her sponsor through Children’s HopeChest, a Colorado-based Christian nonprofit dedicated to providing practical help to orphans around the world.

Today, Anne is able to keep up with Lena through letters that Lena sends her. She also learns other things about Lena's personality—the fact that she's responsible and friendly—through information stored in eTapestry, Children's HopeChest's Web-based donor management system.

Lena's caregivers in Russia attach photos of Lena in eTapestry that are e-mailed to Anne. She also receives yearly highlights about Lena—such as her progress at technical school.

Children's HopeChest provides a myriad of information to donors and sponsors, as well as information on its humanitarian aid, medical supplies and equipment donation, foster-care program, orphanage media centers, transitional homes for orphanage graduates, technical life-skills development program, computer training, and counseling programs for orphans and orphanage graduates.

Specifically, the nonprofit takes pains to track its business and individual sponsors and make sure they receive timely updates on their sponsored orphans and orphanages in Russia and Romania.

"We were doing everything with our sponsorship in the most archaic way possible," said Samantha Kerr, sponsorship coordinator for Children's HopeChest, about previous attempts to track this information. "I don’t even know why we were using a computer."

After a failed attempt at using an unfriendly online database, Children’s HopeChest began using eTapestry in September 2003.

"We were looking for something that was easy to understand, something that we could get information out of in an easy format, and something that we could customize," Kerr said.

"eTapestry has been the dream come true,” Kerr said. “Our overseas staff uses it. They don’t have the high-speed connection that we do, so it takes them longer to get information into it, but they can do it."

Children's HopeChest has a staff of 120, only 10 of whom are based in the United States.

"We were getting information from Russia and Romania in Word and Excel documents and piecing information together here and it was a paperwork nightmare," Kerr said. "If there were changes to make, it would take us forever to make them."

eTapestry is especially helpful in segregating general donors to Children's HopeChest and sponsorship programs.

"You can have a donor that is giving two sponsorships, as well as other programs, so maybe they’re giving $100 a month for one thing and $30 a month for something else," Kerr said. "In managing the information, we needed a database that could separate the information and allow us to get it out easily."

The nonprofit is beginning to make the distinctions in its marketing to these groups with the help of eTapestry.

"It's important because there's times we need to raise money for certain projects and we try to target sponsors for anything related to the kids and their orphanages," Kerr said.

Recently, for a back-to-school fundraiser, Children’s HopeChest sent appeals just to orphan sponsors. Of all Children's HopeChest's donors, the orphan sponsors are more likely to respond to such a fundraiser because they are more involved in the lives of the children. Another campaign to raise money for household and support items for young adults, who had left the orphanage to attend technical school, excluded sponsors and targeted those who had given previously to the nonprofit's graduate and general ministry programs.

In addition to tracking donors and information about the children, Kerr said the nonprofit uses eTapestry to track information about volunteers who travel to Russia with the nonprofit.

"eTapestry enables Children's HopeChest to be more efficient which directly impacts the ministry’s target audience," Kerr said. "Connecting sponsors to children, churches to orphanages, and donors to programs makes it possible for this organization to have an impact on more than 10,000 orphans in Eastern Europe."

Fundraisers don't have to rely so heavily on tech departments

When Jan Stump started work as the Association of Christian Schools International's first director of development two years ago, she struggled to use the nonprofit's association-centric software in her development efforts.

"In fund development, donor communications must be customized and personalized," Stump said. "The software I inherited was extremely unwieldy. Having been in development for 18 years, I knew I needed something intuitive and responsive. I personally wanted to be able to manipulate my data to get the information and reports needed to move my work forward, rather than relying on our overloaded tech department to do that for me."

ACSI, based in Colorado Springs, serves more than 5,400 member schools in 106 countries. Its 18 regional offices assist schools and teachers with certification, accreditation and professional development services. Demand for ACSI's services has increased as the Christian school movement has exploded into Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, South Africa and Latin America.

ACSI's growth and worldwide vision put pressure on the organization's new development department to quickly get up to speed. After Stump spent some time studying eTapestry's Web-based fundraising software at an Association of Fundraising Professionals convention, she began to get serious about making a change.

"I couldn't strike out and make a major investment, but I knew I needed the capability of good development software," Stump said.

First, she had to sell eTapestry internally to her MIS department—her toughest challenge.

"I have a tech department that grilled me and grilled everybody," she said. "For me to leave the association software was a big deal. I had to work through that. I had to build a case and get answers."

After satisfying questions about data security, she received the go-ahead. Today, eTapestry is an important tool allowing her to track and communicate with the association’s 11,000 donors from 100 countries.

eTapestry helps Stump with donor personalization, such as producing personalized and timely thank-you letters for more than 13 different funding projects. Stump uses customized reports that eTapestry culls from her databases to produce information to assist her in long-range planning.

"Using Next Step reports, we all know what follow-up we've done—whose been contacted again and our next steps with all of our guests and donors," Blackard said. "That's all part of Raising More Money. Next Step is the only system we keep. We don't have to keep other records any place else."

For Judy Davidson, director of development for Tucson-based Pusch Ridge Academy, eTapestry pulls her donor information into a format she can easily use.

"It’s everything I want to know about giving history and relationships on two pages," she said. "I've been very pleased with it and I feel we have just scratched the surface on how we can use it."

Davidson feels comfortable knowing she doesn't have to rely on Pusch Ridge'’s tech support office—which services the 385-pupil school—to help her with software upgrades and other technical issues. eTapestry makes all these changes remotely without assistance from its customers.

"eTapestry is constantly updating and improving and they do it at night," Davidson said. "We looked at a ton of software packages. I felt comfortable with eTapestry's cost and knowing that I didn’t have to be a computer guru to make this happen."

eTapestry seamlessly transfers 12,000 donor records

When Florida Christian College converted to eTapestry, a Web-based fundraising software, college administrators had some apprehension during the transfer of donor records to the new system.

"It was so simple, it was scary," said Susan Sydor, administrative assistant to the president. "We kept thinking we were forgetting something or we were missing something."

eTapestry flawlessly transferred the small college's 12,000 donor records from its old software.

"With other systems we have used, we had encountered such nightmares," Sydor said. "And when that didn't happen, we were pleasantly surprised."

During an hour training session on the conversion of records, development office employees did not have enough questions to fill the time.

"Here we are a year down the road, and we haven't needed that hour," Sydor said.

In the past, Florida Christian College used different modules of one software brand that did everything from tracking grades of students to tracking gifts of donors. Because it was so broad, it didn't give the development office the functionality it needed, she said.

The college's upcoming capital campaign will mark the first time that the development office doesn't have to download database information from its main software into another program before generating basic reports and spreadsheets on the campaign.

"The best thing about eTapestry is that I can put information in and get information out," Sydor said with a laugh. "It's such a wonderful thing."

This means the development office saves valuable time in retrieving information. eTapestry also has saved the office training time because it is so easy to use.

"We brought on a new person this summer and she was working in eTapestry in a couple of days," Sydor said. "It doesn't require much training to use the software, generate reports and update information."

Sydor and others at the college have already taken advantage of eTapestry's Web accessibility. If Sydor can't finish her work during the day, she takes her laptop home and logs on to eTapestry via the Internet after dinner. This was especially helpful recently when she worked from home while caring for a sick member of her family.

Florida Christian College's president is setting up his laptop to access eTapestry when he's out of the office so that he can easily retrieve the latest thumbnail sketch on some of the college's larger church donors moments before talking to them.

"This way he can say 'We've noticed you've increased your giving during the year and we want to thank you,'" Sydor said. "When the churches know they are being recognized on a regular basis, it only encourages them to give more."

About eTapestry
eTapestry is the leading provider of web-based fundraising and donor management software for nonprofit organizations of all types and sizes. As a web-based application, eTapestry provides access from any Internet connection and handles all maintenance, backup and security. For more information, contact eTapestry at www.etapestry.com, 888-739-3827, or info@eTapestry.com.

eTapestry saves time and money for ministries

YouthPartnersNet has partnered with eTapestry, a Web-based fundraising application, to further help its hundreds of partners focus on their core mission of providing services for children and youths in at-risk communities.

Donor records and fundraising reports in eTapestry can be viewed remotely and changed anywhere and anytime an Internet connection and Web browser are available.

"We can't afford to focus precious energy on non-mission related activities," said Dean Cowles, president of the Denver-based YouthPartnersNet, which provides funding and services to ministries nationwide. "eTapestry allows ministries-small and large-to do what they do best and leave the process of managing databases and technology to professionals in those fields."

eTapestry has partnered with YouthPartnersNet to offer a 10 percent discount on recurring monthly fees to its ministry partners. YouthPartnersNet also will use eTapestry to track its own list of 9,000 constituents.

"eTapestry is delighted to be a part of this crucial movement to improve the quality of life for our nation's children and youth," said Chip Muston, national account manager for eTapestry. "Rev. Cowles has established a top notch team and network to build on the success of Compassion USA."

YouthPartnersNet will encourage its ministries to use eTapestry when they're ready to build a systematic network to track their supporters, Cowles said.

"eTapestry is easy to learn and use and can be accessed from almost anywhere, which is essential to professional leaders who need the most up-to-date donor information," he said.

YouthPartnersNet also will use eTapestry to help a national philanthropic group work with ministry partners to organize volunteers.

Ministry partner Shepherd Community, an Indianapolis-based ministry that offers after-school programs, emergency food and shelter and a summer day camp, discovered the eTapestry advantages when it began using the Web-based software four years ago.

"eTapestry takes me into consideration, meets my needs, can grow with me, and has a smorgasbord of things to pick and choose from," said Jay Height, director of Shepherd Community. "If we become a million-dollar nonprofit some day, I have a package that will grow with me."

Height said eTapestry is a strong asset to his rapidly growing ministry.

"eTapestry makes my job easier and helps me grow relationships with those who invest in my ministry," Height said. "It makes me a better leader and our organization stronger."

About eTapestry
Founded in 1999, Indianapolis-based eTapestry is the first Web-based donor database and communications management system that rents its software to customers who access it over the Internet. Nonprofit organizations of all types and sizes using eTapestry do not pay the large upfront purchasing costs or the ongoing maintenance and support contracts typically paid in the purchase of more traditional software. For more information, go to www.eTapestry.com.

About YouthPartnersNet.org
YouthPartnersNet.org is an outgrowth of Compassion International, which assists churches worldwide in helping children and youths in at-risk communities by providing professional assistance and funding. YouthPartnersNet.org, founded in 2003, invests in the most effective Christian programs and ministries in cities, rural areas and Native American reservations. For more information, go to www.youthpartnersnet.org.

First Priority of Alabama had an ongoing problem: Two databases and two different database systems.

The Birmingham-based nonprofit with a mission to serve the spiritual well-being of secondary school students in Alabama had worked diligently over the years storing donor data in a Windows-based system and volunteer data in a Mac-based system.

This caused employees to skip back and forth to work spaces equipped with computers that were loaded with the specific software systems. It also often created dual database entries in both systems.

As employees became frustrated with the continual upgrades required for its fundraising software, they were searching for a new system that could handle both databases when eTapestry, a Web-based fundraising software, caught their attention.

"eTapestry is incredible at what it does on the donor side, and we could do those same things with our volunteer database," said Greg Davis, executive director.

First Priority has been using eTapestry since May 2002. The nonprofit used eTapestry to coordinate more than 300 volunteers for Birmingham 2003, a monthly prayer effort that kicked off in January with a youth conference of 2,000 participants. First Priority sent separate e-mails to volunteers through eTapestry, targeting them through their geographic volunteer areas, to help prepare the monthly prayers.

First Priority has taken target marketing to its donor side, sending smaller, separate mailings through eTapestry to lapsed donors, and those who gave more or less than last year, said John Harrison, director of public relations and development officer.

"If I have a mailing of 200 people, we can hand sign it and place a first-class stamp on it and write a personal note," Harrison said. "That personal touch is so vital in fundraising. eTapestry has helped take us to the next level with that personal touch."

One of the nonprofit's employees also accesses eTapestry from home where she pulls reports on the largest donors and then makes appointments for Davis to meet them personally.

Davis said he's been happy with the customer service offered by eTapestry.

"The first year we paid for phone support but the e-mail support was so great that we began to use that most of the time," he said.

In spite of 2002 being a tough fundraising year for many nonprofits, First Priority of Alabama reported record numbers. Davis said that eTapestry was definitely a factor because it allowed the staff to become more efficient and focused on fundraising.

About eTapestry
eTapestry is the leading provider of web-based fundraising and donor management software for nonprofit organizations of all types and sizes. As a web-based application, eTapestry provides access from any Internet connection and handles all maintenance, backup and security. For more information, contact eTapestry at www.etapestry.com, 888-739-3827, or info@eTapestry.com.

There are many ways that a three-member nonprofit staff covering 10 midwestern states can manage 1,200 volunteers.

But Christel Gollnick has found that one of the most effective is to use Web-based donor and communications software. Gollnick, executive director of Angel Flight Central, made that decision more than a year ago when choosing eTapestry to replace the organization's off-the-shelf database system.

"We wanted something that was Web-based, but we didn't want to spend a ton of money," Gollnick said. "I heard from people who were positive about the company. It's price and capabilities are unique."

Angel Flight Central needs effective and prompt communications with its volunteers, the majority of which provide their flight time and their planes to fly people who need transportation but can't afford it. Volunteers' planes were some of the first commercial planes in the air after 9-11. Some of the nonprofit's missions included flying special booties to the rescue dogs working at Ground Zero and reconnecting family members stranded after 9-11.

Angel Flight Central uses eTapestry to manage its volunteer and donor databases. The software tracks Angel Flight's volunteer interest areas, as well as its mailings and donor information.

"We needed something we could customize without putting it into somebody else's language," Gollnick said. "We wanted to pull information in and out as needed."

eTapestry allows her to track donations by zip code to give proper credit to each "WING," or volunteer area.

"If we have a WING with many missions and little money, we know we need to work on contacting donors in the area," Gollnick said. "We weren't able to do that at all before, in Access. It was just too complicated."

Tracking missions and dollars is especially important to Angel Flight Central because of its incredible growth in the past few years. Since 1999 when it flew 305 missions, the nonprofit has tripled its number of missions and volunteers.

eTapestry also will help the nonprofit with its first fundraising campaign. The effort to raise $3 million has begun with prospect lists-defined by priority and region-provided to individual board members for solicitation. Because of eTapestry's accessibility, board members will soon be allowed to look at their prospect information from within eTapestry.

eTapestry's remote accessibility was one of the key reasons Gollnick chose eTapestry.

"We have a lot of volunteers who are not pilots who help run the organization throughout our 10-state region," Gollnick said.

Angel Flight Central continues to receive help from a summer intern from Minnesota who worked in the nonprofit's Kansas office in the summer of 2002 and learned eTapestry with the other three staff members. Now, when she needs data entry work done, Gollnick calls her intern to make the additions from Minnesota.