Fundraising Made Simple

How to effectively make a fundraiser less time consuming and more cost efficient with online fundraising capability.

Fundraising through various activities as sales, silent auctions, walkathons, races, or entertainment events is a popular revenue generator for charitable and non-profit organizations. However, quite a few obstacles exist in the pursuit of running a successful fundraiser, including lacking or overworked volunteers, limited payment methods, limited reach, and overall process inefficiencies.

Fundraising organizers are realizing that in order to complete the event with a significant amount of raised revenue, it must be run as efficiently and resourcefully as a business. Websites, online payment capability, and electronic payment processing are three key factors that can help overcome many of fundraising's obstacles.

A website with online payment functionality not only enables your fundraiser to reach past the local neighborhood, but helps to automate processes. Customers can enter their own information and that transaction feeds into a back-end system automatically. Volunteers no longer have to spend countless hours sorting paper checks and making trips to the bank.

Donors also appreciate the ease of being able to give donations online as their own busy schedules permit-instead of having to make time during regular business hours. They also like being able to choose from a variety of payment options including credit cards, ACH direct-payments, and the ability to give smaller amounts on a regular schedule, instead of a single one-time larger donation.

All of these options pay-off for fundraisers. According to www.electronicpayments.org, charitable or non-profit businesses utilizing electronic payments have a 98 percent fulfillment rate-50 percent higher than businesses using mail-based processes.

Read on to learn about one Boy Scouts Troop that simplified and automated the entire order process for its annual fundraiser by adding online fundraising functionality.

The Boy Scouts of America are well known for their good deeds and outdoor activities. To support these activities and charitable events, Boy Scout Troops hold fundraisers. Troop 970's most important fundraiser is its annual Mulch Sale, which promotes teamwork, instills personal commitment, and helps Scouts pay for High Adventure camping trips throughout the United States.

As Troop 970's Mulch Sale grew in size in recent years, so did the fundraising challenges it faced, including cumbersome order tracking, inability to automatically capture customer information, untimely deposits of revenue, and limited payment options.

To simplify the process, and to provide more flexible purchase options, PaySimple provided the Troop with a securely hosted custom-branded online payment form, enabling it to take orders and accept payments from customers online. The robust system provides a single order form for both credit card payments and ACH direct-debits from a checking account. The system calculates costs, collects payment information, and directly submits the information into the PaySimple system for payment processing-with no double entry. It then automatically deposits the collected funds into Troop 970's bank account.

In addition, the PaySimple system has the ability to accept custom fields for any additional information the Troop requires. In this case, customers were able to provide the exact location where they wanted the mulch stacked. Using a secure password, BSA volunteers could access order information from the PaySimple system via any computer with Internet access, and once the system showed the payment had cleared, the volunteers could deliver the mulch, as requested.

With sales approaching 20,000 bags, Troop 970's 2007 Mulch Sale was a resounding success. PaySimple enabled the Troop to manage both the financial and logistical aspects of the sale more effectively and efficiently, and it created a customer database that the Troop plans to use for future fundraiser marketing.

"It's great to hear that the Boy Scout's fundraiser was so successful and we are happy to have been a part of Troop 970's success, " said Eric Remer, CEO of PaySimple. "PaySimple is an ideal choice for organizations like the Boy Scouts that want a low-cost solution that will simplify business practices, reduce volunteer labor requirements, and increase fundraising revenue."

For more information about PaySimple and how to simplify your fundraising efforts, see Simplify Fundraising or call 800.466.0992.