The donorflex team’s busy year shows no signs of slowing down as the UK charity sector moves into the hurly-burly of festive fundraising – meaning there’s no time like the present to bring prospective clients up to date with what’s happening in the donorflex world.
We’ve spent more time on the road this year than ever before, helping users to sharpen their skills and delivering the support that's allowed them to set and achieve big objectives in these tough times. The signs are that we’ll be even busier in the coming 12 months….
It’s a privilege to play a part
Our client support team’s acutely aware of the challenges everyone faces in 2012 to keep pace with the level of demand being made on services at a time when the economic climate’s tough and the competition for resources is high.
We believe our clients want us to react positively in this era by enhancing our service, and by helping them to explore new fundraising opportunities while working with more efficiency than ever before.
To do this, we’ve invested in strengthening our team. In addition to other appointments, we’re particularly delighted to welcome Paul Brennan to our consultancy support team.
Paul’s a highly experienced voluntary sector systems and operations expert who, for seven years, was a founder member and mainstay of one of donorflex’s competitors until it was taken over. He decided to join the donorflex team because he shares our ethos and passion to do the very best we can for our clients.
It’s an approach that’s as established and consistent as it can be – a proud boast that’s underscored by the fact that three key members of the team have passed the 10-year service landmark in 2011. By the end of next year, that number will have increased again, meaning more than half the team will have passed that milestone. In other words, solid to the core.
donorflex 10 on its way
In May, we told delegates at our highly successful 2011 donorflex User Conference that we’d embarked on Project Solstice, the development programme that will deliver the advanced technological and communications facilities to strengthen their use of donorflex.
We’ve just given them a pre-Christmas present in the shape of news that the first phase of Project Solstice is complete – and ready for release as donorflex 10 early in 2012.
We’ve also announced the Regional User Group roadshow dates and venues where their teams can learn how to use the great new donorflex 10 features that will allow them to make the most of their time, their resources and every fundraising opportunity that comes their way.
We’re excited about the new advances, because we’ve followed our familiar ‘you speak, we listen’ approach to development. That means it’s full of things they’ve asked for – and a few others they didn’t know they needed, until now. We’ve given donorflex Lottery users a sneak preview of some of donorflex 10’s new features at our recent free Lottery seminars, and their reaction makes us confident that next spring’s RUG roadshow delegates will go home very happy.
Making life better by making it easier 1
While the planning for donorflex 10’s release – and the RUGs – has been going on, we’ve not lost sight of the basics. Here’s an example.
The most frequent type of call to the donorflex helpdesk is from users who find mail-merging and template-management a real challenge. donorflex 9 made the task easier than ever before, but we understand why some users continue to be anxious.
That’s the reason we’ve included a special half-day course on mail-merge and template-management in our bumper autumn training schedule. And there’s more….
Making life better by making it easier 2
Whether yours is a hospice organisation or not, here’s an example of how we’ve worked with clients to make the most of their most precious resource – their data.
donorflex’s long-held and much-cherished status as Britain’s favourite hospice database has resulted from the simple process of understanding the sector’s needs and delivering the tools that ease the task of producing remarkable results, year in, year out.
Using our Tributes system, donorflex has been helping clients to manage their Tree of Light or Tree of Love initiatives each year since Version 7.1. We’re about to make it even easier.
On the cusp of donorflex 10, with dozens of hospice fundraising teams around the country about to immerse themselves in a period of high activity, we’ve released a free new software utility that’s designed to make even more of the huge efforts being undertaken.
We’re here to help you, too
In 2011, we’ve been delighted to field a rising number of enquiries from prospective clients – like you – who know just what an important part a mature, fit-for-purpose CRM database plays in their day-to-day operations and strategic planning.
It’s a source of great pride that 45 per cent of our clients have used donorflex for more than 10 years. Our reputation for working hard, providing great support and developing software with understanding and innovation explains why they’ve built a relationship with us over the long run. The same approach will see that figure rise beyond 50 per cent by the end of 2012. And you could be rubbing shoulders with them.
We hope this end-of-year update gives you a clear idea of what we’re doing, where we’re heading, and the service and support that’s yours by joining the world of donorflex users. As 2011 speeds to a close, we look forward to picking up our conversations with you to find out how we can help you to make 2012 the best it can be.
