This past year may have been the breakthrough year for artificial intelligence (AI). It seems as if you couldn't turn on the news or visit your favorite website without stories breathlessly touting the latest AI innovation. While it may appear like AI is new, it's not entirely new; the technology behind the latest surge of AI-based products has been on the market for several years, quietly improving automation and saving nonprofits time, money, and resources.

According to a survey from Smartsheet, 40% of workers surveyed say that they spend at least a quarter of the work week on repetitive

Driving Dashboard Development. Step-by-Step Guide to Generating Relevant Fundraising Dashboards.

What’s the first thing you do when you get into a new car? Adjust the seat, adjust the mirrors, check the gas gauge, set the radio channel (and volume). Once you’re confident it feels right, you look both ways and you’re off!

Just like driving a new car, the process for driving dashboard development takes some planning and initial adjustments to set you on a course for success.

And as every make/model car is different and every driver is different, so too is the need for driving dashboard development. How

Never has there been a greater need for the services and support our nonprofits and local governments provide, in large cities and small towns, across the United States.

And at the same time, these nonprofits and local governments are challenged by the reality that funding is shrinking.

In order to persevere and continue providing for the communities they are charged with supporting, nonprofits and local governments need to maximize their technology, streamline their processes and provide their internal teams and stakeholders with the financial reporting needed to make informed decisions.

AccuFund is helping its customers meet this challenge head on

Part of AccuFund's Small Formulas – Big Impact Series: Donor Participation Ratings    

HOW ESTABLISHING DONOR HISTORICAL DATA CAN LEAD TO INCREASED GIVING.

Who are your frequent donors?
Who are your major donors this year?
Who is close to moving into these categories?
How much has any one donor given in their lifetime?

A total sum of giving helps create a better picture of your donor. It helps you gauge the strength of a donor’s relationship to your organization. But, how easily can you access that information?

By establishing predefined segments in your database, it makes life easier at

For fundraisers, knowing the appropriate amount to ask of a potential donor is half the battle (and arguably, the most important). Ask too little and you miss an opportunity. Ask too much and you risk scaring the donor away.

A little known and scarcely used tool in Salesforce helps guide the fundraising/development team in knowing the appropriate amount to ask.

When you talk with a donor, is your database customized to tell you what that next appropriate ask should be?

This blog post will walk you through, step by step, to automate the appropriate donation ask amount.

The two previous

When mapping the direction and strategy of your nonprofit, the ultimate goal is always mission fulfillment.  But are there habits and processes that need to change in order to see dramatic improvement?  

Are there change agents within the organization that have pointed to areas of deficiency who have been routinely told “not yet”?  Are there areas of the organization that are operating exactly as they did five years ago, ten years ago?  What about your accounting department?  Are they using the same processes and tools as they were years ago?  Is the only change the increased number of spreadsheets

In an earlier blog post, we showed you how to increase last year’s giving total for ALL your contacts by 10%. Oftentimes, this standardized increase will help you achieve a specific fundraising goal set by your team.

In some cases, you might have a select group of donors that you’d like to increase well above the standard, perhaps by 25%, 50%, or even more. This is common practice for organizations using moves management.  

In this blog post, we’ll teach you how to create a calculator out of your Salesforce account to calculate individualized giving goals.  We’ll use

Sometimes it’s the little things in life that make all the difference.
A friendly smile, a warm, sunny day,
a Salesforce formula that generates immediate results.

Yes, a Salesforce formula.

As an example, let’s say your nonprofit is looking to raise 10% more than it did in the previous Calendar Year.
How can you quickly and easily capitalize on the tools Salesforce provides, and take your giving to the next level?

Salesforce’s NPSP roll-up capabilities provide us with a field that is the total amount an individual person gave in the previous CY, named: Total Gifts Last Year.  We'll take

AccuFund primarily concerns itself with security and fraud prevention in its accounting products and takes that responsibility seriously.  Separation of duties, auditability and control are all considered in the design of the system.

If you are a senior financial person in your organization you may be expected to think more broadly about security and fraud including your website and the safety of website donations with credit card information.  One way to give your donors confidence is to include a “Security or Trust Seal” on your website.  The seals available from WebTrust, Symantec/Norton, Comodo and other sources provide a level of

Your fundraising results are crucial to your mission. Development Directors that can put technology to work employing an easy-to-use and affordable fundraising system are going to see better results than those burdened with manual processes.

When looking for a new system there are two costs that go into your purchase – the cost of the software and the cost associated with implementing the software. AccuFund CRM software will require an implementation fee, but there is no cost for the software itself since it is available through the donated Enterprise Edition Licenses of the Force.com platform.

In addition to the savings,