Saving money and time by integrating email and donor management

Manna Conejo Valley is a small nonprofit with a staff of two full-time employees and two part-time employees. They started over 50 years ago. Serving an average of 180 families each month and distributing more than 225,000 pounds of food, their mission is to support families in the Conejo Valley that are struggling with food insecurity.

Leanne shares how:

• Manna simplified its donor outreach with DonorDock
• She’s saved countless hours previously spent on filtering reports
• They were able to eliminate the need for a separate email service that was costing them $40 a month

“I think for someone who's looking for a complete, well thought-out, easy-to-use, inexpensive donor management software. I don't know what else you would choose. I had a whole spreadsheet with five different [donor management CRMs]. I talked to all kinds of salespeople, tried all kinds of demos, and DonorDock jumped out for sure, especially at the price point.”

A small nonprofit’s struggle to find the perfect Donor Management CRM

As a small nonprofit, they had a hard time finding a donor management software that fit their needs. They were using a legacy system that felt clunky and it was difficult for them to pull the information they needed to make informed choices. They had no efficient way of managing donor relationships.

“The previous software wasn't great. It wasn't easy to pull information out. You had to get into the record and dig around to see it, so I didn't use it for donor management. I was constantly running reports and trying to see what had happened in the previous three months with these people and what could I do with them now. Or writing myself notes to try to remember to call someone.”

Their donor outreach felt scattered and disconnected. Pulling reports to see what steps to take next with specific contacts was time-consuming. Handwritten reminders are easy to lose. With limited time, it was easy to let connection points between Manna and their donors lapse. Sometimes Leanne thought she’d just reached out to a donor only to realize six months had gone by. She would need to pull a report to see what type of outreach would best fit each donor.

On top of that, their email service was difficult to update and customize. With a small staff, they didn’t have the time to keep updating their emails, running reports to see who to contact, and importing those lists into their separate email service. There just weren’t enough hours in the day!

How Manna streamlined their outreach with DonorDock

Nudged in the right direction with the ActionBoard

With Smart Nudges from the ActionBoard, Leanne is able to organize her donor outreach. She’s served daily reminders of the tasks that are most important, with the details of her last interaction for each contact. For Manna, this means that their communications are remaining timely and relevant.

“Having the DonorDock ActionBoard has helped me put in notes as I'm doing things. I put a lot of reminders in there for myself so that those will pop up as the date arrives. The other one that I tend to look at the most is ‘this person hasn't heard from your organization in X amount of time.’ That helps me to be sure that I haven't missed someone.”

Easy reports and accessible data

Because pulling reports in DonorDock is straightforward, Leanne saves countless hours that were previously spent trying to gather information about what was happening at Manna and with their donors. She also uses reports to follow up with food drives, which has made sending bulk receipts easier.

“The way that DonorDock’s reports are set up, it's very intuitive. I can find what I want. I've set up some custom reports. I can make changes if I need to. I can filter, and I can look for badges. It's been easy to get the information that I needed.”

Integrated email and donor management

While Leanne initially thought integrating email and donor management would cut costs, she quickly realized the time-saving bonus! With DonorDock, their contacts are easily filtered, sorted, and segmented into the email lists they need. Now it’s easy for Manna to send emails, and they know they’re reaching the audience they need to with timely information.

“I don't think I realized how much time we were spending trying to export lists and upload lists and create the emails in a different program.”

The drag-and-drop email builder also simplifies creating custom emails. DonorDock allows Manna to store all of their photos and verbiage in one place, so it is accessible for every donor communication. From creating receipts, custom thank you notes, and newsletters, everything is readily available inside DonorDock.

Better communication and insights with less time and cost

With the ability to easily insert photos and customize content, Manna Conejo Valley is now able to send emails more consistently than ever before. The ease of use has led them to start a quarterly newsletter that was previously too much of a hassle to put together.

DonorDock makes it easy for them to send out customized reports without having to manually sift through the data. The ActionBoard has been a huge help in managing their donor relationships, and they especially appreciate the updates that help them stay on top of important tasks.

It's just helping me to see a bigger picture, not just of what happened the last time that person gave a gift, but in total over the last six months, what has Manna's interaction with them been?

DonorDock enables the small team at Manna Conejo Valley Food Bank to remain connected with their donors in a way that is meaningful. Their outreach is more consistent and tailored to their contacts. With the ability to see if a donor has opened an email, they know when to follow up with handwritten notes.

Want to see if DonorDock is the right fit to help you save time and money? Schedule a demo today