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6 Reasons to Upgrade from Excel to a Nonprofit CRM

Is your nonprofit using excel as its database? Many small or newer nonprofits will use excel to track all of their donors and donation data. This is a common and affordable approach for a season, but there are a number of reasons why most nonprofits can’t afford to continue using Excel as a database. You will soon see why upgrading to a CRM is undoubtedly worth it.

As much as we love Excel, here at DonorSnap we know they simply can’t take the place of a CRM. Below are the top reasons your nonprofit should be using a CRM in place of excel spreadsheets. There is a better way to manage your donors and donations and here is why:

1. A CRM provides better, cleaner, and easier reporting than excel

Unless you are familiar with functions and pivot tables, generating reports from excel can be time-consuming and frustrating.  A simple clean listing of donations received this year are not available in Excel without masking and hiding columns and rows. 

In DonorSnap a quick click on a standard report will show you all donations received for the year.  Another report will show you that information along with what the donor gave last year. For those wanting to really maximize their donor interaction you can run a LYBUNT report with a simple click (Last Year But Unfortunately Not This Year). For quick views, you can create at-a-glance reporting to view on your dashboard as soon as you log into DonorSnap.

2. Acknowledgement letters and statements are simple and fast in a CRM

With Excel you do not have the ability to create an acknowledgement/thank you letter to your donors. You’ll need to open up Word and manually create a custom letter. With DonorSnap, you can automatically create the acknowledgement letter and set the system up to either print the letter for mailing with USPS or automatically send it via email. Thanking your donors is a necessary step that can be easily accomplished with the right CRM. 

3. Your data is more secure in a CRM

Having a secure log-in and access point protects your donor’s information and keeps it all living in one place. If you are using excel, multiple copies and users changing the spreadsheet is cumbersome. It will lead to inconsistent data or unintentional changes. DonorSnap has robust reporting features that allow you to export data into excel. The nice thing about this is that no matter what you do to the report, your data is secure and stays the same in the database. The system is automatically backed up and protected from accidental loss and you never need to worry about “overwriting” your spreadsheet.

4. Your data is accessible from anywhere to anyone who has an account with DonorSnap

Having all of your data in one file generally means one person is the sole keeper of it. If you have an office manager, a development director, and an ED all needing access to donor information, a CRM like DonorSnap will allow you all to access it from wherever you are. DonorSnap allows unlimited users and is cloud-based. Regardless if you are on the road or all working from home, you can have access to the data you need. If someone leaves your organization you can simply remove their user account and have peace of mind. 

5. Print and email campaigns can be done directly from your CRM

Managing mailings from Excel is a manual process that can be prone to errors. Fortunately, mailings can also be done right out of DonorSnap. You can do mass newsletter mailings to all constituents or create targeted mailings or event invitations to specific contacts. We integrate with Constant Contact if you want to use their powerful array of email templates or use DonorSnap’s built-in mass email feature included with every subscription that you can use in addition to or in lieu of Constant Contact. 

6. Integrations Will Save You Time and Raise more Funds

Online donations are becoming more popular and with the right CRM, you can collect donations online and have them feed right into your database. Using our responsive online forms, you can easily collect online donations and have them go directly into your bank account. The number of Online Donation Campaigns you can create are only limited by your imagination.  Once you get the donation, our integration with QuickBooks sends those donations straight from DonorSnap to QuickBooks, so you never have to enter the same donation twice! 

When you upgrade from using Excel to a CRM like DonorSnap, you will save time and have less room for errors. Data will be more secure and easily accessible so you can create the reports you need to track the data you want. Is it time to say goodbye to excel and let DonorSnap help your nonprofit reach your fundraising goals?

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