Fundraising technology partnerships in August 2015
Howard Lake | 24 August 2015 | News
Blackbaud Europe, Access Group and Harlequin have all announced recent new partnerships and client wins.
1. University of Cambridge chooses Access group
The University of Cambridge has selected Access thankQ fundraising software from Access Group to support its alumni relations and fundraising enterprises.
More than 6,000 students graduate each year, and the University has an alumni community of over 230,000 across the globe. £120 million is raised by the University and Colleges annually from both alumni and non-alumni, and the Development and Alumni Relations office required an effective database system to support the scale of its engagement and fundraising campaigns.
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The database system will be in place at Cambridge’s development and alumni relations department in the UK and its Cambridge in America office in the US by the latter half of 2016. Homerton College will also be using the new system from next year.
2. Compassion UK and Compassion Canada choose Blackbaud CRM
International Christian child development and child advocacy ministry Compassion UK and Compassion Canada have selected Blackbaud CRM® following a global technology review. Designed for large or complex not-for-profit organisations, Blackbaud CRM offers fundraising management, online applications, multichannel direct marketing, actionable prospect research, analytics and an integrated supporter view.
The UK office was looking for a new system primarily to support financial processing and Gift Aid, which contributes around £5 million to the charity each year. In addition it needed a tool that would support its child sponsorship programme.
Compassion takes a different approach to child sponsorship that focuses on the child first and the community second. Donors give £25 a month to support a child through a minimum 44 week child development programme.
Compassion UK’s Chief Operating Officer, Shelley Wallace, said:
“The sponsorship functionality within Blackbaud CRM enables us to designate revenue to a particular child. A lot of systems restrict the allocation of money to a specific fund, but Blackbaud CRM takes that to the next level by enabling us to allocate money to a sponsored child without a lot of customisation”.
3. BEN and Charities Aid Foundation
Automotive industry charity BEN has chosen Charities Aid Foundation to handle the administration of the payroll giving schemes of nearly 400 automative companies.
As a Payroll Giving Agency, BEN previously handled the administration of these schemes itself. However, despite overheads, it was doing so at no cost to the companies or donors. Following a business strategy review, it is transferring the activity to CAF to help reduce its costs.
The staff at these companies donate £1 million each year through payroll giving, with BEN receiving 91% of that, given its strong links with the companies.
Jools Tait, Business Development Director at BEN, said:
“Payroll Giving is a very important source of income for BEN. With new business strategies being put in place, we will cease to be a Payroll Giving Agency (PGA) later this year so that we can invest more into developing and growing our vital support services which benefit those in the automotive industry.”
CAF processes payroll giving donations for over 3,200 companies, handling around £70 million a year from more than 300,000 individuals.
4. Google and Scottish and Northern Irish charities
Google has extended its Google for Nonprofits service to registered charities in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Like charities in England and Wales, which became eligible for the service in July 2013, they will benefit from free access to a suite of Google’s products and tools.
The service was extended to Scotland and Northern Ireland with support from the Technology Trust, the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations and TechSoup Global.
Successful applicants will receive free access to Google Apps.
Charities can apply for Google for Nonprofits online.
5. CAF Donate handles £35m in its first year
Charities Aid Foundation’s Donate card payment and direct debit processing platform has handled almost £35 million for good causes in the year since it was launched.
It was set up to help the tens of thousands of small and medium sized charities “who had been priced out of being able to accept non-cash donations” in CAF’s view. So far 2,000 charities have used the platform, to receive a total of 91,081 one-off donations, and direct debit donations that have been set up by 88,294 people.
The average one-off donation made via the CAF Donate page is £89. This increases to an average £107 donation when made through a CAF Donate widget embedded on a charity’s website.
6. Blackbaud and the University of London
The University of London’s newly formed Development Office has selected the Blackbaud CRM™ solution, as part of its drive to establish and grow alumni relations and development activities.
Blackbaud CRM is an enterprise wide web-delivered platform developed specifically for large or complex not-for-profit organisations. It combines fundraising management, online applications, multichannel direct marketing, actionable prospect research and analytics to enable an integrated view of the supporter experience across an organisation.
Founded in 1836, the University of London is the third oldest university in England. Today it consists of 17 Colleges and 10 Institutes, serving over 120,000 students. Additionally there are 55,000 students in more than 180 countries enrolled in University of London International Programmes.
Newly appointed Director of Development Bill Abraham explained:
“We could have chosen a more traditional fundraising database but we knew that with our global reach, multi-layered and complex group of supporters, and the importance of being able to recognise existing affinities with our federal colleges, that we would have quickly run into technology and process roadblocks.
“The team at Blackbaud and the Blackbaud CRM platform provide us with the capability to rapidly accelerate development activities. We see this as a long term partnership and are confident that this platform can keep pace with changing demands and increasing sophistication.”
- Fundraising platform reports big jump in cashless donations (3 July 2023)
- Fundraising technology provider iRaiser expands to the UK (8 January 2019)
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.