Non-profit organizations face barriers with administrative support; over-worked employees, under-qualified but good-intentioned volunteers, lofty board of directors objectives and limitless goals to help promote the cause or charity. Like the old adage says, you need to adapt a ‘Work Smarter, Not Harder’ mentality. And to do that, there are some efficiencies you can implement in your operation that can take away some paperwork, increase productivity and help you market your cause to a greater audience.

Here are some suggestions:

FORMS:

Old School – PDF forms that you fill out and email or slower yet, snail mail back.

New School – Online fillable forms that drop directly into your inbox.

Your staff will certainly appreciate receiving automatic forms and not having to consolidate all those paper forms they had to do in the past. If you want to setup your own forms, try using Wufoo. It’s very user-friendly, easy to implement and it’s free, until you want to go pro.

CREDIT CARD PROCESSING:

Old School – Mail in a check, unsecure credit cards over the phone.

New School – Online payment processing, recurring payment processing.

I was working for a non-profit organization that didn’t want to give up 3% by offering online payments, so instead every time I made a sale, I would take a credit card over the phone, walk across the office, pull out the credit card machine, run the card, batch the transaction, scan the receipt, shred the paper with the credit card info and email it back to the purchaser. I was ready to pay the 3% myself just to get that time back.

Accepting credit card payments on your website can save your staff time and it is so much more secure than writing down a credit card number over the phone. It will also increase revenues by allowing recurring orders, automate and minimize collections.

If you do off-site events, negotiate the use of wireless credit card machines to use for those few events a year as part of your program. We can’t recommend one particular credit card processing company, because everyone’s needs are so different.

ONLINE EVENT TICKETING:

Old School – Using an excel spreadsheet to track ticket sales and handing out paper tickets.

New School – Online ticketing with intricate demographic fields, online tickets and barcode scanning at the entrance of your event.

For a small processing fee, an event ticketing company can manage so much for you. I really like Eventbrite. With Eventbrite, I was able to compile and easily print attendee lists, integrate with my Mailchimp account for reminder emails, quickly print name badges, collect and process payment upfront and avoid profits lost from no shows. That small processing fee was well worth the investment. Also, Eventbrite customer support is great!

ONLINE DONATIONS:

Old School – Mail merge letters soliciting donations.

New School – Email requests for donations, automated online donations with user options.

Why not make it as easy as possible for people to give you their money and on the schedule they choose? Seriously. You can have a custom online donation form added by your website development team or you could consider some of these options.

AUTOMATED EMAIL MESSAGING:

Old School – Bi-annual mail merges with expensive print collaterals to last year’s or the previous three year’s list and huge spammy BCC emails.

New School – Beautiful ICANN regulated emails with strong calls to action and automated email responses at scheduled intervals, like renewals, birthdays and after donations..

We know you spend a lot of time telling people what you do, whether it’s via email or in print. Consider signing up for Mailchimp, which is free for up to 2000 subscribers. You’ll be able to import your CSV with renewal dates listed and then set up automatic emails based on criteria.

MEMBERSHIP MANAGEMENT TOOL:

Old School – Proprietary software that only one person in your organization can access, update and manage.

New School – User updated, multi-admin, simple interface with automated functionality.

A membership management tool will make your life so much easier and yes, more efficient. A system like, Wild Apricot or a WordPress plug-in can can easily allow a user or to easily update membership data, provide user-accessible members database, automated renewals, invoicing and so much more.