Multiple times a year your ministry will likely put together some kind of event to help fund its programs or raise funds for the needy. These events are some of the biggest, most important times for your ministry and you need to make sure that they go off without a hitch. There is a lot of work that goes into ministry events and you need to have the right tools to ensure that you and your staff can put something together that is helpful. Ministry software, and especially event management software, can be highly useful to the staff members putting the event together, and the sooner they have access to new software solutions, the quicker they will be able to start planning the next event.
Volunteer management
People who donate their time are vital to your ministry’s success. Your paid staff members can’t be expected to do all of the work, and it is important to keep information on all of your current volunteers. When you keep detailed information on the people who help, you can better utilize them during events. As soon as event planning is started, make sure to reach out to volunteers to see who can help prepare and be a part of it. While you might not get much of a response if the event is several months off, it’s always important to touch base with your volunteers regularly. As the event draws near, increase communication and try to bring in more people.
“Ensure that you have a team of individuals, both paid staff and volunteers, recruiting new people”
Once the event is underway, ensure that you have a team of individuals, both paid staff and volunteers, recruiting new people to donate a portion of their time to the ministry. Events are a great place to recruit new help. If you have volunteer management software in place, you can get their information into your ministry’s database so you can contact them when you need them.
Donation management
Another important part of ministry events is donations. It can be difficult to keep track of all the donations that are coming in, but it’s important to do so. Once again a donation management software solution will make this process much easier. Also, with a good software solution, you can build donor profiles and keep track of information so you can contact dedicated donors when your next fundraising event comes around. This data will include their personal contact and certain kinds of information about their donation payment. This will allow you to easily track data as the day progresses.
It’s vital that you have trained individuals working with the software. These can be dedicated volunteers or paid staff members, but the last thing you want to do is miss out on a donation or record donated money wrong due to human error. While donation management software solutions are built to be extremely user friendly, you still need to have a few people around who have an intimate knowledge of the system.
“You need to know which dedicated donors make an appearance and which ones don’t.”
Event attendance
A good event software solution will help you keep track of who attended and who hasn’t. This is important because you need to know which dedicated donors make an appearance and which ones don’t. If there is a donor you were expecting to see but didn’t, it may be a good idea to reach out to them after the event is over and touch base.
The more interaction you have with donors the more likely they are to think of your ministry first. Nonprofit Hub reported information from the Network for Good that said many organizations lose over 60 percent of their donors after their first donation. While this stat might not matter so much for your dedicated donors, there’s a chance that they may have found another organization they feel has a need that is greater. The only way to ensure that donors keep coming back is to communicate with them and show them that they are helping you do good. A strong and up-to-date database will help ensure that you’re reaching donors as needed.