AssociationForce understands that fundraising is a critical factor in the success of many organizations. That’s why we developed a very comprehensive online donation or fundraising software. It allows users to perform online fundraising easily and securely.
Whether you are managing one fundraising campaign or multiple donation causes, AssociationForce’s donation management software will help you to streamline the entire process. The convenience of online fundraising will be something that your donors appreciate, and your organization will benefit from the many terrific features offered by our donation module’s collection and distribution components.
Numerous Options for Collecting Donations Online
AssociationForce offers users several choices in how to set up their online fundraising initiatives. For example, multiple donation causes/fundraising drives can be created and accessed from a centralized location allowing donors to easily specify the beneficiary of their donation. Organizations can also have the option of setting up a catalog of products to sell on-line to generate additional funds for their causes.
Tools to Publicize your Charity and Online Fundraising Efforts
Raising awareness of your organization’s causes is crucial to garnering positive results. AssociationForce simplifies this for you by providing several great methods for publicizing your online fundraising campaign. In addition to an attractive donations collection web page, our donation management software also comes with the ability to execute fundraising e-mail campaigns targeted to your donor base. Your organization can also use AssociationForce to organize and manage special fundraising events and to send automated pledge reminders to members of your organization.
Safe and Secure Collection of Online Payments
AssociationForce makes it easy to collect donations online by securely processing payments made by check or any major credit card. Once an online payment has been received, AssociationForce generates a donation confirmation receipt. Our system can also be set up to gather additional donor information via a custom questionnaire. Testimonials can be captured and published during the online payment process, as well.
Simple Donation Distribution
AssociationForce’s donations management software makes organizing your charities and their associated causes/fundraising drives effortless. Using our system you can mange caseworkers’ workloads, distribute funds to payees, and organize all funds receipts. As you can see, AssociationForce serves as a powerful auditing system for its users.
Detailed Donation Tracking and Reporting
AssociationForce understands how important it is for an organization to maintain a detailed and accurate financial reporting system. Therefore, our donations management software automatically compiles a database of all your organization’s donors and tracks all movement of funds from the time they are collected to when they are dispersed to their respective charity. AssociationForce then utilizes this information to generate extensive customizable financial and administrative reports.
Online Fundraising Benefits
AssociationForce’s donation management software provides benefits such as tremendous flexibility in how you set up and manage your online fundraising. Its numerous automated features also allow your organization not to get bogged down by the many administrative tasks associated with managing a fundraising campaign. However, the bottom-line is that AssociationForce helps you to raise money, and as a result, we help your organization grow and become even more effective.
Single View of Possible Donors
AssociationForce help you to better visualize your entire members and donors view. The integrated nature of AssociationForce underneath database enables you to classify your current donors and identify the potential donors based upon your criteria. You can view member status, donor status and their programs involvement. Such an analysis of donor-base greatly simplifies and better directs your fund-raising efforts.
Synchronized Donors Database
AssociationForce gives you a single view of your database and all your business functions are linked seamlessly. It eliminates the duplicates from your donors’ database and ensures data integrity. It ensures that your fund-raising efforts are using valid data with no anomalies.
Powerful Filters
AssociationForce gives you the flexibility to filter your donor-base the way it suits you most. It delivers you the power to segment your customers and design fund-raising campaign that are highly focused and are tailor-made for the specific donor groups.
Automate Processes for Thinner Employee Structure
AssociationForce is suited for organizations with fewer staff, to impeccably automate all your business functions. It enables you to keep a thinner staff and accomplish more with less and deliver more for your cause.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Successful Associations Require Staff Intensity
That's right, successful associations require intensity. There must be intensity in the underlying purpose of the association and in its mission and vision and objectives. There must be intensity in its volunteer leadership. And, most important to my message today, there must be intensity in its staff.
One of the things I've felt passionate about during my career in association management is that staff members must develop an intensity, a firey passion, about the business or profession of the associations with which they work. It's simply not enough to do the work. The work must be done with feeling. It has to matter. When that happens, things begin to happen. Possibilities that were never even considered begin to emerge. Volunteers who had a hard time finding the spare moments to devote to the association start to make time for the association.
Intensity in association staff (and, of course, that includes association management company staff) is an important component of the "fire in the belly" that causes great things to happen. It's not sufficient, but it is necessary. Great things also require committed volunteer leaders and other volunteers who are willing to work...without that, staff intensity will ultimately wither. But when staff intensity is combined with volunteer intensity...watch out!
I'm the first to admit that, for the most part, associations are not institutions that form the bedrock of society, so we mustn't take ourselves too seriously. But we must all understand that our little parts of the world do matter, and that by focusing our intensity on things that make our little parts of the world better, we're making an important difference!
I'll close this first post in our new blog with some comments from some very wise people:
"Never underestimate the power of a few committed people to change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstei
One of the things I've felt passionate about during my career in association management is that staff members must develop an intensity, a firey passion, about the business or profession of the associations with which they work. It's simply not enough to do the work. The work must be done with feeling. It has to matter. When that happens, things begin to happen. Possibilities that were never even considered begin to emerge. Volunteers who had a hard time finding the spare moments to devote to the association start to make time for the association.
Intensity in association staff (and, of course, that includes association management company staff) is an important component of the "fire in the belly" that causes great things to happen. It's not sufficient, but it is necessary. Great things also require committed volunteer leaders and other volunteers who are willing to work...without that, staff intensity will ultimately wither. But when staff intensity is combined with volunteer intensity...watch out!
I'm the first to admit that, for the most part, associations are not institutions that form the bedrock of society, so we mustn't take ourselves too seriously. But we must all understand that our little parts of the world do matter, and that by focusing our intensity on things that make our little parts of the world better, we're making an important difference!
I'll close this first post in our new blog with some comments from some very wise people:
"Never underestimate the power of a few committed people to change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstei
Volunteer-Managed Associations: Avoiding Traps
I see one of the most visible results of associations being completely volunteer-managed almost every time I encounter such an association: the organization has, either in the past or at present, lost its standing to do business in the state in which it is incorporated (and, therefore, in other states). Oftentimes, the problem is due to the organization's registered agent being a volunteer who has moved or died or is no longer in the business or profession of the Association. In some states, the registered agent must be an attorney and/or must be a resident of the state in wihch the organization is incorporated. Notices to the registered agent that to unanswered can cause all manner of trouble.
Those pesky annual report requirements tend to get lost or misplaced or simply overlooked by volunteers, many of whom do not have any experience in dealing with state reporting requirements. It is understandable that unpaid volunteers with no previous experience may overlook reporting requirements, but that makes it no less important. While it's usually not the end of the world to lose status, failure to maintain currency of standing can be enormously problematic. For example, directors and officers liability policies may become invalid upon dissolution of corporate status caused by failure to file reports. The IRS can get testy if an organization fails to file annual returns. All sorts of state officials tend to bristle at unauthorized conduct of business within state borders.
This is NOT an argument that all volunteer-managed associations need to immediately seek the services of an association management company. I'll readily admit that many of them simply do not have the financial resources to engage a management company, particularly on an ongoing basis. What I will argue, though, is that volunteer-managed associations need to take steps to ensure that they maintain their good standing with state comptrollers and secretaries of state. Here is a simple and relatively painless way to do that:
Those pesky annual report requirements tend to get lost or misplaced or simply overlooked by volunteers, many of whom do not have any experience in dealing with state reporting requirements. It is understandable that unpaid volunteers with no previous experience may overlook reporting requirements, but that makes it no less important. While it's usually not the end of the world to lose status, failure to maintain currency of standing can be enormously problematic. For example, directors and officers liability policies may become invalid upon dissolution of corporate status caused by failure to file reports. The IRS can get testy if an organization fails to file annual returns. All sorts of state officials tend to bristle at unauthorized conduct of business within state borders.
This is NOT an argument that all volunteer-managed associations need to immediately seek the services of an association management company. I'll readily admit that many of them simply do not have the financial resources to engage a management company, particularly on an ongoing basis. What I will argue, though, is that volunteer-managed associations need to take steps to ensure that they maintain their good standing with state comptrollers and secretaries of state. Here is a simple and relatively painless way to do that:
- At a predetermined time each year (the beginning of the year often is a good time to start), the Boards of Directors should set aside time to review what filings have been made, what filings are required, and who has responsibility for making filings and reporting back to the Board;
- If the Board is not organized in such a way as to be sure that such an activity will absolutely, certainly take place each year, a "reminder service" of some sort should be paid for (see below);
- If the Board does not know what filings are required, a member of the Board should be assigned the task of exploring state requirements. A couple of good places to start looking: 1) the secretary of state's website and the 2) comptroller of public accounts' website. If the information is not readily available or cannot be found there, a call to a CPA should provide a quick answer at little or no cost.
- Whenever possible, the Board should engage a professional to ensure that appropriate reports are filed, or at least that the Board is notified of the need for filing them. An association management company can be engaged for that purpose at a very low annual fee, as can a CPA or an attorney; for a very basic "reminder" service, the cost should be negligible.
The drudgery of annual reports, tax filings, and the like can cause some people to just ignore them in the hope they will go away. They won't. They will come back to bite the Association, and can do it with a vengenance. Simply ensuring that someone looks into the issue on a regular basis can save the Board from headaches and, in some cases, much worse.
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