We recently published a post about compliance when accepting online donations for charities, and although online donations are the way forward in terms of donor preferences and fund security most non-profit organisations still accept other types of donations - such as bank transfers, cheques, cash, etc. - so it is time to discuss how charities would like to or should manage their donation records.
What does Donation Management stand for?
While building KindLink we noticed that there is hardly any technology developed for charities enabling them to record and manage such ‘non-online’ donations. At the beginning of 2016 we worked with different charities on our initial pilot project to find out how we could build the right software that would help them manage their donations from one place.
Donation Management can be described as a tailored system for a charity to run its finances and record its income. Indeed, there are accounting software for this but allow me to remind you that they are built for business invoicing purposes and are paid services that many charities cannot afford or manage because of their complexity. To summarise, a Donation Management system is similar to an Excel spreadsheet where the charity team can record any income that has reached their bank account.
Is it the right tool for your charity?
Thinking about the way charities would use a Donation Management software, these are the main requirements we have identified:
- it should not be just another Excel spreadsheet, but rather be tailored to the fundraiser’s needs e.g. link to the donor record in a supporter CRM;
- it should feature the chance to link the donation to a specific project and include it in a Gift Aid report if needed;
- it should have a filter and export capability enabling the team to send a report to the charity accountant when needed.
Naturally, such systems need to have a simple interface, and need to be accessible on mobile and in the cloud so that the managers and trustees are not restricted in their work.
And this is exactly what we have designed. We used the feedback from our workshops with our chosen pilot charities and created what is now KindLink charity software, and on top of that we made it free to use for all registered non-profit organisations.
As simple as that.
Why not to be #oneofakindlink?
Here at KindLink we know that the digital world is constantly changing and as our aim is that of making the most complete and effective non-profit Donation Management software available to charities, we would like you to invite you to submit any comments and ideas that might help us improve it even further and give you the best possible tech solution to raise funds and connect with your donors and supporters.
So, why not to be #oneofakindlink? If you have any questions or thoughts, drop us an email via our contact us page - we would love to hear from you! Your feedback is invaluable to us and we would welcome the possibility to tell you more about KindLink and how it could help you showcase your amazing work.
Please note that KindLink is meant for mid to small charities rather than big ones which have much more complex needs and often build their own software for that purpose.
