This last question is an important one to end on: “Will your choice help you raise more money?” As you shop for fundraising technology, don’t check your common sense at the door, and don’t let fundraising technology salespeople dazzle you. At the end of the day, technology is simply a tool. Put into the right hands, a chisel can create Michelangelo’s “David” … but in the wrong hands, just a lot of dents in the wall. If you spend all of your resources selecting and purchasing tools, but have no money or energy left over for the team to leverage the tools, you may find yourself staring at a wall of impressive-looking computers with very few donations flowing through them.
Philip King is founder of The Donation Funnel Project, an experiment in online and mobile fundraising. He is a regular contributor to NonProfit PRO.