A recent “Meet the Grantmakers” panel at the Foundation Center in San Francisco brought together Jacob Harold of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Anne Valley of The James Irvine Foundation, and Linda Wood of The Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund to focus on the theme of “organizational effectiveness.” Threaded throughout the discussions were topics raised at the March 10-12, 2008 conference convened by Grantmakers for Effective Organizations - also known as GEO. GEO promotes organizational effectiveness by identifying and promoting grantmaking practices that improve grantee performance. If your organization passed the letter of inquiry and proposal stages with a funder and needs to get ready for a site visit, the Foundation Center panelists would encourage you to download a free copy of “The Due Diligence Tool.” Many grantmakers are now using this GEO publication to assess nonprofits when making funding decisions. The guide pulls together best practices from a variety of U.S. foundations from small family foundations to large private foundations.

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I just received the March/April 2008 issue of the Grassroots Fundraising Journal, which is dedicated to the topic of fundraising databases. This is a particularly good topic for small community-based nonprofits because databases are more commonly used by organizations with larger budgets and staff capacity. Some nonprofits resist databases because staff are not accustomed to using them. Others do not have the time or resources required to find the right solution and implement new tools through training. Yet once these hurdles are cleared, then an organization could be on course to increasing support and tracking impacts. Databases are tools that facilitate communications and connections with supporters and potential donors.

In the for-profit world businesses use CRM databases - Customer Relationship Management - to track marketing campaigns, leads, and sales. Nonprofits raising money and working with volunteers need the same tool to effectively manage and build relationships with constituents - individual donors, foundations, volunteers, sponsors, and other supporters. Now online resources are out there to make it possible for small nonprofits to take advantage of these tools. To make an informed decision about hard costs (equipment or software) and people costs (time to assess and implement), here are a few resources:

Idealware: The article “A Few Good Tools: Low Cost Constituent Databases” provides product comparisons and considerations.

TechSoup.org: Several good articles here on planning and selecting a database.

The San Francisco Bay Area Non Profits Salesforce.com user group: Salesforce Foundation donates 10 product licenses to eligible 501(c)(3) organizations, and a nonprofit-specific CRM is available.

Network for Good: Articles and research on donor databases.

Community Technology Network of the Bay Area: Articles on on technology planning useful for assessing costs and how to project manage a solution.

N-Power: Resources and articles such as how to select a technology vendor and manage a technology project.

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Since 1956 the Foundation Center has connected nonprofits to free philanthropic resources. For years I have been attending their events in San Francisco including “Meet the Grantmakers” panels and special events with topics from “Fundraising for Small and All-Volunteer Organizations” to “Trends in Bay Area Bank Philanthropy.”

In recent months, the Center has launched several online multimedia resources to make the invaluable information shared in their free events accessible to communities and organizations that cannot attend the lively presentations in Atlanta, Cleveland, New York, San Francisco, or Washington, DC. I just discovered “Philanthropy Chat,” which is a new online audio series featuring interviews with West Coast philanthropists and fundraising experts. Janet Camarena, the director of the Center’s San Francisco library and learning center, hosts the interviews. In the first pilot edition recorded on October 10 she speaks to Ralph Lewin, associate executive director of the California Council for the Humanities. You can listen to the audio recording or read the transcript on the Center’s website and learn about the Council’s current grantmaking programs and how they are using new media technologies.

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