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."

Like many nonprofits, California-based African Conservancy recently joined the growing ranks of nonprofits enabling their Web sites to take donations online.

African Conservancy president and founder Corinne Waldenmayer reasoned that those who respond to an upcoming e-mail campaign might prefer to make their donations online with a credit card. As the time drew near for a large-scale campaign to continue the nonprofit's mission to preserve African wildlife and traditional cultures, Waldenmayer began to compare the online donation service she was using, which was free to set up, with others that more closely matched her organization's growing emphasis on fundraising.

"As long as I was not planning to have a lot of donations, my old service was fine," Waldenmayer said. But, she said, the 15 percent fees on donations that her former provider charged would not have been acceptable to donors if there were other, better alternatives.

Waldenmayer, who was already using eTapestry, a donor management system accessible via the Internet, began to investigate eTapestry's online donor services, which charges a flat rate to set up the Web page and establish a merchant account and a flat rate of $30 per month and 1.9 percent of the gift amount.

Because the donation information flowed automatically into her database and the gift page worked seamlessly with her Web site, eTapestry was an easy choice.

With another headquarters in Zambia and board members located on both American coasts, Waldenmayer, a former engineer, knew when she established African Conservancy less than one year ago that she would likely be working with an application service provider (ASP).

"It was important for us to access the software without installing it on everyone's desktop," she said. "ASPs work well for organizations with characteristics like mine. The minute you have an office in Italy and an office in New York and you want to share data, you better have someone who knows what they are doing handle your data or you're going to have a hard time."

eTapestry's low cost and lack of maintenance also appealed to Waldenmayer. "One of the things that traditional software companies tell you is what their software will cost you over a four-year period," Waldenmayer said. "They say it's a lot cheaper to buy your product, then you own it. But this does not take into account annual maintenance fees of $400 to $500 a year or the fact that after four or five years your system is obsolete."

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.

Nonprofit makes decision based on access, online giving integration, pricing

The staff for Seattle-based Neighborhood House started from scratch in the fall of 2000 to search for new donor database software to replace the nonprofit's internally developed Microsoft Access databases.

Neighborhood House is a United Way agency that provides services, such as transportation, social services and child development programs, to low-income people.

The staff's mission was to find a donor database system that could allow them to work more efficiently with their 5,000-donor database, while integrating with an online donation system. They researched software providers listed in The Chronicle of Philanthropy and asked other Seattle-based organizations what they were using before diligently plodding through marketing material from about 20 companies that offered traditional and Web-based software.

They placed all the systems into a complex spreadsheet grid and compared their features before narrowing their choices to a traditional software company and eTapestry, an application services provider that allows its users to access software through an Internet connection.

"The other solution had upgrade costs, and licensing and hardware issues," said Ray Li, development director for Neighborhood House. "And pricing for the traditional software was a problem."

After demonstrations of both systems, Li said the staff chose eTapestry for its remote accessibility and added features, such as online giving.

"We decided we really liked that we could access our databases from home and give access to the system to board members who could use it when doing their 'asks,'" Li said.

Now, eTapestry has become an integral part of plans for Neighborhood House to step up its fundraising efforts and to integrate its board members in the fundraising process. Li said he wants board members to have the ability to add data to the system, but not to change the histories that already exist.

"If you have more access to the information, you take on more responsibility and feel more 'bought in' to the process," Li said.

Li is hoping donors will feel that way, too, once they get to choose how they want to donate-either online or through traditional methods.

"People are talking about the two types of New Donors," Li said. "One wants to give money quickly, but they're not interested in parties or events. Others want to research organization and play an active role in them. We need to give donors the flexibility to give as many ways as possible."

Online giving through eTapestry also eliminates a database entry step for Neighborhood House because it transfers all the giving information on those donors directly into the nonprofit's database.

Founded in September 1999, eTapestry is the first fundraising applications service provider (ASP), a company that rents its software to customers and delivers it on the Internet. eTapestry is less expensive and more versatile than traditional fundraising software applications. It is used by nonprofit organizations of all types and sizes.

For more information about eTapestry software, visit www.etapestry.com.

Until recently, the eight ministries that make up Atlanta-based Action Ministries couldn't easily track donations that came into the corporate office because their donor databases weren't linked. Some of the ministries-located throughout north Georgia-used software programs to track donors, while others tracked their donations by hand.

The faith-based ministries, located throughout northern Georgia, offer transitional housing, soup kitchens and food pantries, enrichment programs, a residential drug treatment center and emergency assistance with rent and utilities

The ministries have close ties to their communities and many donations made through the corporate office are earmarked for a specific ministry, said Nancy Hruschka, Action Ministries director of development.

"For donors, the affiliation with the local ministry is extremely important," Hruschka said. "We want to continue that tradition but provide technical and software support so we can do a better job communicating with our donors."

Hruschka is in the process of making eTapestry, a donor-database software system accessible through the Internet, available to all the ministries so they can easily track donors. Hruschka set up her database so each ministry has its own database of donors.

"This is one of the beauties of the system-the ability to have one database that can function as support for multiple ministries," Hruschka said. "Through eTapestry, we could discover that many of our donors give to more than one ministry. It also allows us to communicate to all of our donors and volunteers when we want to send out agency-wide material, such as newsletters and invitations to events."

eTapestry's remote access allows Hruschka and her volunteers to work from home and avoid the time-consuming commute to downtown Atlanta.

One of eTapestry's other selling points was that it didn't need an IT staff to put it together or make changes to it later, said Hruschka.

"Some programs, once you set them up, you need to keep purchasing the upgrades and installing the software," Hruscka said. "From what I experienced with eTapestry, if you have a suggestion on how to make the system better, the staff listens. When improvements are made to the system, I don't have to do anything. eTapestry does it."

Founded in September 1999, eTapestry is the first fundraising application service provider (ASP), a company that rents its software to customers and delivers it on the Internet. eTapestry is less expensive and more versatile than traditional fundraising software applications. It is used by nonprofit organizations of all types and sizes.

For more information about eTapestry software, visit www.etapestry.com.