{"id":21932,"date":"2021-03-03T14:19:03","date_gmt":"2021-03-03T14:19:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/virtuous.org\/raise\/2021\/03\/03\/3-powerful-benefits-of-donor-portals\/"},"modified":"2021-03-03T14:19:03","modified_gmt":"2021-03-03T14:19:03","slug":"3-powerful-benefits-of-donor-portals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/virtuous.org\/raise\/3-powerful-benefits-of-donor-portals\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Powerful Benefits of Donor Portals"},"content":{"rendered":"
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What would it be like if your donors could see the impact they\u2019re having through their giving in real time?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something like their own personal dashboard for impact and giving?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How much time would you save if your online gift processing system could work with your donors directly to solve problems with their gift transactions? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My friend, these are more than water-cooler daydreams.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With RaiseDonors Donor Portals, you can save yourself loads of time every week in working with donors to solve transaction problems like card expirations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, you can set your organization apart by providing a donor experience like nowhere else through RaiseDonors Donor Portals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are Donor Portals?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At the bottom of every receipt and Thank You page, there is a link for donors to manage their Donor Portal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When the donor clicks that button, RaiseDonors will know (based on their email) if they’ve ever used the portal before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If it\u2019s their first time, RaiseDonors will ask them to create a password. If they\u2019re returning, it will prompt them for their password. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, you know what always happens<\/em> when passwords are involved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the Forget Password? feature, the donor can always reset their password on their own. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When donors login to their Donor Portal, they can view their giving history, manage their contact and gift information, download receipts, manage recurring giving, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Should You Use Donor Portals? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Honestly, Donor Portals are one of my favorite RaiseDonors features!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are so many benefits to both nonprofits and donors when you begin to leverage this powerful tool.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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1. Donor Portals Enable Responsive Fundraising<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In his book Responsive Fundraising<\/em>, Virtuous<\/a> CEO Gabe Cooper makes a strong argument for the inherent weakness of traditional fundraising and the need for what he calls \u201cresponsive fundraising.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2026this traditional model prevented nonprofits from serving the donors whose lives and passions were deeply connected to the cause. Most donors loved our work, but felt alienated by the impersonal\u2014and often desperate\u2014communication they received from our nonprofit.\u201d<\/em><\/p>Gabe Cooper, Responsive Fundraising<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When the donor feels disconnected from you and the mission, that\u2019s the real problem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most often, this feeling of disconnection is caused by one-directional, urgent mass communications that come across as \u201cimpersonal\u201d and \u201cdesperate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But another reason donors can feel disconnected from you is when they\u2019re left in the dark. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

RaiseDonor\u2019s Donor Portals gives donors a panoramic view of their giving relationship with you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They can see at a glance how much they\u2019ve given, what they\u2019ve committed to give, and many other important pieces of information about their relationship with you as a nonprofit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Donor Portals you can be more responsive to your donors \u2013 without more effort!!<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

If the donor wants to know how much they will be charged each month, you can respond to their question immediately through the Donor Portal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the donor\u2019s job situation changes and they need to pause their monthly gift, they can do so at any time of the day.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through Donor Portals, you can respond to your donors\u2019 needs and inquiries 24\/7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Donor Portals Save You Time<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Being responsive to your donor\u2019s needs or requests 24\/7 doesn\u2019t mean you need to be available to talk, email, or chat with them all day long. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Donor Portals, you can save yourself loads of time in simple donor customer case scenarios.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the biggest customer care concerns for nonprofits is helping donors renew their monthly giving after an interruption, like a credit card expiring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not unheard of for a nonprofit to have to call as many as 50 donors to update the information on their expired credit cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you take just 10 minutes for each of those calls (and that\u2019s being very<\/em> conservative), that\u2019s 500 minutes per month or just over 8 hours per month.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this scenario, an entire workday is spent each month just calling people to ask them for their new credit card info.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If my math holds up, that\u2019s over two work weeks spent on the phone updating credit card information per year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your RaiseDonors Donor Portal does this all automatically, saving you a ton of time!<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Each time a donor\u2019s card is charged, the charge is either approved or declined. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the charge is approved, RaiseDonors automatically sends the donor a Thank You email that you designed ahead of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if the charge is declined, RaiseDonors sends the donor a notification. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, you can fully customize the notification they receive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This happens for all donors with recurring gifts through RaiseDonors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if you have Donor Portals activated, when donors receive a notification that their recurring gift was declined, they can enter their portal and update their card on their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The entire credit card updating process, from notification to update, was done seamlessly and automatically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saving you and your team so many hours worth of time that you can spend doing literally anything else\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026which is a really good feeling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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3. Donor Portals Clean Up Your Donor CRM\u2026 <\/strong>Automatically<\/em><\/strong> <\/strong> <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Data accuracy can mean the success or failure of a fundraising campaign. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you spend tens of thousands of dollars on a direct mail piece, but only 70% are deliverable or land in the right person\u2019s mailbox, you\u2019re losing a lot of money.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, you could invest in a National Change of Address (NCOA) service or module that is a part of your nonprofit CRM software. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And for most organizations, this is something I highly recommend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But even a good NCOA service is not 100% accurate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the most accurate form of data cleanup is when a donor updates their own email address, mailing address, marital status, date of birth, or other information themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019re getting your information straight from the horse\u2019s mouth, so to speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By activating Donor Portals in RaiseDonors, you can have a way to automatically clean up your donor data \u2013 all without spending a single dollar more!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not to mention that you won\u2019t have to spend a single minute cleaning up the data \u2013 the donor does it themselves!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When are you going to activate Donor Portals?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So, I guess the only question is when you want to try this awesome RaiseDonors feature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, I\u2019ve given you three of what I think are incredible benefits Donor Portals can produce for your nonprofit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feel free to let us know if you have any questions about this powerful feature or how it can benefit you and your donors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contact us today!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What would it be like if your donors could see the impact they\u2019re having through their giving in real time?\u00a0 Something like their own personal dashboard for impact and giving? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":118,"featured_media":52311,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[817],"tags":[],"types":[],"ppma_author":[816],"class_list":["post-21932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-donor-relationships","author-stephen-boudreauvirtuous-org"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t