Grant management software is just now beginning to take hold in the nonprofit industry and with its emergence comes many misconceptions and myths. We believe that grant management software can vastly improve your grant management process, giving you the tools you need to track every grant your nonprofit applies for and their specific requirements of your organization. Take a look at the most common grant management software myths below and find out if grant management software could benefit your organization.

Myth 1: Grant management software should replace your organization’s accounting solution.

Grant management software is NOT designed to be a replacement for your nonprofit accounting solution. Grant management software does not have the capability to house your organization’s financial data; however, it does have the capability of importing data from your accounting system. Nonprofit employees often need to access financial data when creating reports and other important documents related to their grants. While grant management software cannot house the organization’s financial data, the right software can import selected financial data from the organization’s accounting system. To put it simply, grant management software is a separate system from a nonprofit’s accounting solution, but it can manipulate the financial data that is imported from the accounting system for its own use.

Myth 2: Your donor database is sufficient for managing your organization’s grants.

A lot of nonprofit organizations are trying to force their donor databases to perform two functions – manage both donors and grants. A donor database is designed to track gifts, send thank you notes, create fundraising strategies and offer insight into a campaign’s effectiveness – NOT to manage the grant process. In addition, donor databases are not transparent systems designed to be used throughout the organization. Donor databases have their specific purposes and are typically designated to only a few people in the organization.

Grants, however, require a different system because so many areas of the organization play a role in the grant management process. Grant management software offers a centralized database for all of the activities, information, and documents pertaining to the grant. For example, grant management software is able to pull information from multiple areas of the organization (such as HR, accounting, and programming), automatically consolidate the information, and report it back to the funder. This is crucial since funders often have specific requirements for organizations accepting their grants. Grant management software provides organizations with the ability to monitor, analyze, report on and manage each and every grant, as well as streamlines the entire grant management process by establishing open communication between the organization’s other systems and departments.

Grant management software is designed to help nonprofits effectively manage their grants at every stage of the process. Donor databases may be able to provide some information for the grant management process, but they will not be able to guide nonprofits through the entire process.

Myth 3: Spreadsheets are sufficient for managing your grant information.

Many nonprofit organizations will create spreadsheets to track the information that their current systems cannot generate automatically. Depending upon these spreadsheets is often a sign that the organization is creating a work-around, which can create many potential problems in the future. For instance, what if the creator of the spreadsheet leaves the organization and no one else in the organization has access to the information? Your organization could lose a substantial amount of mission-critical data. How will your organization transition from managing 2 grants to 15 grants using only spreadsheets? As the complexity of the grant management process increases, the risk of error becomes high. Spreadsheets – while they may work for organizations managing one or two grants – are not a viable method for those organizations managing numerous grants.

The right tool will make the grant management process easier and save your organization a substantial amount of time. Contact us today to learn more about how grant management software can improve your grant management process.

Many nonprofit organizations make the mistake of thinking that once the new year has passed, their year-end responsibilities are over. After all, the year-end fundraising efforts have concluded, year-end reports have been made, and accounts have been closed out. What more is there to do?

While it may seem odd to begin working on year-end now, the beginning of the year is the perfect time to review and evaluate your fundraising efforts for the previous year, and begin planning ways to improve for efforts this year. There are many things you can do to review your previous years fundraising, from surveying your supporters to evaluating your website analytics.

Fundraising software can help you prepare for year-end now. This article will focus on a number of reports you can easily run within Sage Fundraising Online, and how you can use these reports to plan for the current year. The key to evaluating these reports is to look for areas where you can improve and identify actions that worked well. With this information you can do more of what worked and test new actions in the areas you need improvement.

Report 1 – All Campaigns for the Year
Create a report that includes all of the campaigns you ran during the previous year, whether they were a donation form or a fundraising event. This type of report will give you a great overview of the year and an easy way to compare and track your progress year over year.

You can create this report using the default Form Answers report making sure to Add “all campaigns” to the report and “Filter by..” set as last year. This will probably end up being quite a large report, with a lot of data. We suggest you download the report and use Excel (or a spreadsheet program) to manipulate the data there.

You can total columns, sort by donor name, etc. within the spreadsheet to dig out the information you need.

The areas we recommend you evaluate and track in this report include:

• Total dollars raised this year
• Total number of donors
• Total number of donations
• Total number of new donors
• Total number of repeat donors
• Average number of donations per donor
• Average gift size

If this is your first year running this type of report then this will become your baseline to compare future years. If you do have this data from previous years, then you can look at each data point and see if there are patterns or trends over the years. Are the numbers going up or going down? If a data point is increasing, you can explore why that may be and do more of it this year. If a data point is decreasing you can explore why you think that may be happening and brainstorm ideas to address this during the year.

For example, if you notice that your average gift size has dropped since the previous year why do you think that happened? Did you have different donation amounts on your forms (larger amounts, smaller amounts, different order, etc.) or could it be that donors ended up donating more than one time on average? The data can be used to give you ideas for testing this year.

Report 2 – Monthly Totals
Create a report that contains all campaigns, summarized by month. We are not really concerned with the individual donations here, just the monthly total of dollars raised. This report will give you a great snapshot of the year and make it very easy to identify seasonal trends and patterns.

To create this report you can use a default Form Answers report using all campaigns and all forms. You then add a new column to the report for the month. Move the new column you just created to the top of the “Format as..” section. You can then use this new field Month (Local) to “Summarize by..” month. The key questions to answer from this report include:

• Which months do you raise the most money?
• Which months do you raise the least amount?
• Are there any months where you can add a new fundraising campaign or event?

For example, if you notice that you raise very little money from January through April, you can think of a fundraising campaign you can launch during this time.

Report 3 – Fundraising by Form
Create a report showing the total amount raised for each of your fundraising software forms. If you have too many forms to make this feasible, you can also run this report for each campaign instead.

You can create this report by adding all forms to a report, moving the “Form Name” column to the top of the list and then “Summarize by..” Form Name.

As with the other reports, we are looking for trends and patterns within the report. Identify which forms raised the most and least amount of money over the year and try to evaluate why some performed better than others:

• What type of form raised more money – donation forms or registration forms?
• Were these generic donation forms or program/event specific forms?
• Where were these forms located? Where they on the home page or main program pages, or buried deeper in the site?
• How did you drive traffic to the higher producing forms?

Once you have identified some of the patterns or causes for the resulting performance, it is much easier to do more (or less) of those actions this year.

Analyzing these reports provides you with an opportunity to strategize your fundraising efforts for the coming year and improve your performance by creating a baseline to compare efforts year over year.

If you are looking to invest in fundraising software or need help creating the reports you need in your current fundraising software solution, call RBP Methods at (503) 648-9051.

Many people think that fund accounting software was created solely for nonprofit organizations; what they don’t know, however, is that government entities can benefit greatly from using fund accounting software. Government organizations, like nonprofit organizations, have specific accounting and financial reporting needs. Fund accounting software, such as Sage 100 Fund Accounting, can help government organizations master critical accounting and administration tasks by including the tools governments need for tracking and reporting on individual funds from multiple sources and on varying budget periods, as well as complying with GASB and other reporting requirements.

Fund accounting software includes the following features designed to meet government accounting needs:

• Automatic allocation of expenses across several projects or accounting codes.
• Posting of transactions to the general ledger in real-time or batch mode.
• Built-in system checks to balance transactions before posting for each accounting segment.
• Excellent audit trails and transaction reporting to reduce time spent tracking specific transactions.
• Interactive business intelligence tools provide financial dashboards for fast, effective, and informed decision-making.

If your government organization is looking for a fund accounting solution, consider investing in Sage 100 Fund Accounting (formerly Sage MIP Fund Accounting) for your government accounting needs. Sage 100 Fund Accounting software is a comprehensive solution that puts you in control. Its intuitive design makes the software easy to learn and use, minimizing the impact of staff turnover. Application tasks and reports are grouped by accounting function, including easy-to-understand workflow diagrams and checklists.

Make Smart Decisions with Business Intelligence
The financial dashboards in Sage 100 Fund Accounting software give you immediate access to the data you need to make tactical and strategic decisions. The Visual Analyzer module provides users with interactive graphs for financial analysis. Users can drill up, down, and across accounts to fully analyze cash balances, trends, budgets, and spending ratios in real-time, as well as share visual representations of financial data – making it simple for everyone to understand your finances.

Exercise Control over Your Budgeting Process
Sage 100 Fund Accounting software offers budget management and control for government organizations. Maintaining budgets in the same system in which you are collecting and entering actual transactions enables you to easily monitor financial data in analysis reports. You can drill down to the detailed entries that comprise the balances for a complete audit trail. For more control, you can monitor budgetary reserves through encumbrance tracking. You can evaluate revenue, expenditures, and spending ratios at a glance with graphical representations of budget-to-actual data.

Create the Reports You Need with GASB Built-In Reporting
Sage 100 Fund Accounting software provides a flexible, built-in report writer that helps you easily create reports that meet the varying requirements of funding sources as well as internal management and oversight agencies. The report writer is also designed to enable accountants to easily customize and produce their own reports focused on any grant, program, department or other cost centers. The built-in report writer enables users to:

• Produce a wide selection of standard reports including GASB-compliant, audit-ready, financial statements.
• More than 150 standard reports are included, such as the Statement of Activities and the Statement of Cash Flows, or you can format an unlimited number of your own reports.
• Write dynamic financial statements directly within the application.
• Create a list of your favorite reports and keep them at your fingertips.

Manage Cash Flow Year-Round
Save valuable time by having complete control over your cash flow, plus maintain consistency with immediate updates to data with each transaction entry. Using fund accounting software, you can project your cash balances and plan to use the funds for future expenses. During budget planning, review past budgets versus actuals to use as a foundation for projecting the future year’s receipts and expenditures. Make decisions using real-time data to view current cash balances and easily drill down to transaction details to answer questions for in-depth analysis. As your fiscal year progresses, you can update your organization’s projections by comparing budgeted amounts to actual cash accounts.

Track and Manage Your Funds
Grant management tools let your organization track the critical details including expenditure detail, applicant data, awards, and associated paperwork. Use Sage 100 Fund Accounting software to maintain comprehensive profiles of all grants, with the ability to attach electronic copies of important documents, and streamline administration processes. You can review allocations of indirect or shared costs or investment-related earnings and costs, report on their impact before posting, and preset complicated allocation parameters to save time and improve consistency.

Management HR with Ease
Sage 100 Fund Accounting now offers a complete Human Resource Management solution, with payroll processing, human resource management, employee web services, and tax preparation. The HR solutions are fully integrated—allowing for seamless efficiency. These solutions were developed specifically for the unique accounting and reporting challenges faced by government organizations.

Fund accounting software is created for government organizations with their specific needs in mind. If you are interested in learning more about what fund accounting software can do for your organization, contact us today.

Nonprofit fund accounting is more than an accounting system. It is a way of financial management. True fund accounting for nonprofits requires fund development planning and strategic fund accounting. We have discussed fund accounting for nonprofits extensively on our blog and by now you most likely know the benefits of investing in a nonprofit fund accounting solution. What you may not know, however, is that in order for fund accounting to be effective, you must have a fund development plan in place.

Creating a Fund Development Plan
What is a fund development plan exactly? A fund development plan is similar to your nonprofit’s multi-year strategic plan. In fact, to be a little more specific, your fund development plan is sub-plan of your organization’s strategic plan. While the strategic plan provides an overview and foundation of your organization’s work, the fund development plan works to secure the financing to carry out your organization’s strategic plan. A good fund development plan creates an organization-wide awareness of the fund development process and instills an ownership of philanthropy.

It is important to know that fund development is not a one-time, as-needed occurrence to be ignored the rest of the time. Nonprofits should look at fund development as an on-going and beneficial process that engages every staff and board member in some way. Fund development affects every area of your organization and is affected by everything your organization does. To be effective and produce lasting results, the fund development planning process needs to encourage learning, generate organizational change, align employees with the organization’s mission, and produce shared accountability among the entire staff and board.

Your fund development plan should include:

1.  Assignments of Accountability
   In order to be successful, your staff and volunteers must know what they are responsible for. Make sure that you have clearly defined what belongs to your staff and what belongs to your organization’s board members. Determine where your board members and the development committee fit into your plan prior to carrying it out.
2. Relationship Building Strategies
   This is the most important part of the fund development process. Because your funding depends on the relationships your organization builds with the community and supporters, relationship building strategies (and measures) should be included in your written fund development plan.
3. Fund Solicitation Strategies
   In order to receive funds, you typically have to ask for funds, so be sure to include fund solicitation strategies in your plan. Enlist the help of your board members and any other prominent figures of your organization. Remember that face-to-face solicitation always works best and is often the major component of your fundraising efforts so don’t forget to include it in your fund development plan.
4. Timeframes
   Include a calendar of the fiscal year in your fund development plan. This will help you identify key fundraising months, meet important tax deadlines and map out solicitation strategies by month.
5. Measures
   Define what it is that you will measure and remember to measure more than money and the number of donors. Measure the comprehensiveness and effectiveness of your relationship building strategies, and measure the performance of your board members. If you continue to measure the effectiveness of your strategies and goals, you will have the opportunity to make the necessary changes and see substantial progress.

The Benefits of Fund Development Planning
There are many benefits to developing a fund development plan. An effective plan will:

• Reaffirm your nonprofit organization’s vision, mission, goals and direction
• Set new goals and strategies, as well as test their attainability
• Define measures and benchmarks for your organization’s goals
• Ensure that volunteers understand the most critical principles of fund development and philanthropy
• Assess the return on investment (ROI) of fund development tools and activities (such as fund accounting software)
• Engage key stakeholders in the process
• Assess the internal and external environment in order to proactively respond to challenges and capitalize on key opportunities

As you can see, creating a plan to manage the funds that come into your organization is an important task; however, fund management does not end here. To get a clear picture of your nonprofit organization’s financial standing, you should invest in software designed specifically for fund accounting for nonprofits. Fund accounting software will not only help you track funds as they go through your organization, but it will also help you create goals and establish new strategies for your funding.

Contact us today to learn more about how fund development planning and fund accounting software can help you reach a further level of success.

A nonprofit organization’s success lies in more than simply providing the best services to its community; true nonprofit success requires fund development planning and strategic fund accounting.

A fund development plan is similar to your nonprofit’s multi-year strategic plan. In fact, it is a sub-plan of your organization’s strategic plan. While the strategic plan provides an overview and foundation of your organization’s work, the fund development plan works to secure the financing to carry out the strategic plan. A good fund development plan creates an organization-wide awareness of the fund development process and instills an ownership of philanthropy.

It is important to know that fund development is not a one-time, as-needed occurrence to be ignored the rest of the time. Nonprofits should look at fund development as an on-going and beneficial process that engages every staff and board member in some way. Fund development affects every area of your organization and is affected by everything your organization does. To be effective and produce lasting results, the fund development planning process needs to encourage learning, generate organizational change, align employees with the organization’s mission, and produce shared accountability among the entire staff and board.

Your fund development plan should include:

1. Assignments of Accountability
   In order to be successful, your staff and volunteers must know what they are responsible for. Make sure that you have clearly defined what belongs to your staff and what belongs to your organization’s board members. Determine where your board members and the development committee fit into your plan prior to carrying it out.
2. Relationship Building Strategies
   This is the most important part of the fund development process. Because your funding depends on the relationships your organization builds with the community and supporters, relationship building strategies (and measures) should be included in your written fund development plan.
3. Fund Solicitation Strategies
   In order to receive funds, you typically have to ask for funds, so be sure to include fund solicitation strategies in your plan. Enlist the help of your board members and any other prominent figures of your organization. Remember that face-to-face solicitation always works best and is often the major component of your fundraising efforts so don’t forget to include it in your fund development plan.
4. Timeframes
   Include a calendar of the fiscal year in your fund development plan. This will help you identify key fundraising months, meet important tax deadlines and map out solicitation strategies by month.
5. Measures
   Define what it is that you will measure and remember to measure more than money and the number of donors. Measure the comprehensiveness and effectiveness of your relationship building strategies, and measure the performance of your board members. If you continue to measure the effectiveness of your strategies and goals, you will have the opportunity to make the necessary changes and see substantial progress.

The Benefits of Fund Development Planning
There are many benefits to developing a fund development plan. An effective plan will:

• Reaffirm your nonprofit organization’s vision, mission, goals and direction
• Set new goals and strategies, as well as test their attainability
• Define measures and benchmarks for your organization’s goals
• Ensure that volunteers understand the most critical principles of fund development and philanthropy
• Assess the return on investment (ROI) of fund development tools and activities (such as fund accounting software)
• Engage key stakeholders in the process
• Assess the internal and external environment in order to proactively respond to challenges and capitalize on key opportunities

As you can see, creating a plan to manage the funds that come into your organization is an important task; however, fund management does not end here. To get a clear picture of your nonprofit organization’s financial standing, you should invest in a fund accounting software solution. Fund accounting software will not only help you track funds as they go through your organization, but it will also help you create goals and establish new strategies for your funding.

Contact us today to learn more about how fund development planning and fund accounting software can help you reach a further level of success.