Talking Tech Stack and Online Fundraising With Fundraise Up, Ep #35

Episode 35

With Benjamin Johnson, Nic Miller, & Salvatore Salpietro

Talking Tech Stack and Online Fundraising With Fundraise Up, Ep #35

This is the last Frontier FM of 2021 so buckle up for a great one! Long-time listeners of the show will be familiar with the organization Fundraise Up. They are an incredible company focused on redefining the online giving experience with a simple philosophy: What makes life easier for the donor is ultimately going to make life easier for the charity. On this episode, Ben sits down with Nic Miller and Salvatore Salpietro of Fundraise Up to discuss online fundraising, how “tech stacks” impact nonprofits, and the challenges facing modern charities.

You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in...

  • Introductions and Insta-scams [0:50]

  • The history of Fundraise Up [2:17]

  • The power of working together under one roof [7:13]

  • Defining “tech stack” and how it’s impacting the charity world [10:10]

  • The challenges facing today’s charities [16:44]

  • Why Ben is such a Fundraise Up fanboy [24:04]

  • Common hurdles to expanding your “tech stack” [29:13]

Digital is here to stay

A “tech stack” is the suite of technology used to power your organization from a digital perspective. Traditionally, there has been a big disconnect between the for-profit and nonprofit worlds with technology. For-profit companies offering Software as a Service (SaaS) products use phrases like “tech stack” as a colloquialism every day. More recently, the nonprofit world has begun to adopt such terminology because staying up to date has become necessary in the ever-growing digital giving space. Charities are starting to see the importance of tech and the platforms they use to collect donations thanks to companies like Fundraise Up. However, too many charities have yet to invest in their future with this type of technology. While there's nothing wrong with having analog fundraising strategies like direct mail campaigns, nonprofits that ignore digital trends are putting themselves at a disadvantage.

Making business-minded decisions as a charity

Running a charity is hard. The long hours and late nights filled with short-staffed efforts are ultimately worth it because all of that work goes towards making the world a better and more generous place. Yet because nonprofit work is challenging, charities tend to purchase software packages that make their life easier, but not necessarily more effective. All-in-one software solutions may seem like the way to go, but there are real ramifications for charities and their beneficiaries when they take the easy route. For example, when payment processing is a part of the software, the organization does not own any information inputted into the system. Sure, there is a definite upside to having everything in one place, but what if you need to make a change in the future? Moving any aspect of your organization to a different system could mean a major headache, or worse, losing all the productivity you gained in the first place from keeping things all-in-one. Charities would do well to make business-minded decisions when building their tech stack over choosing the easiest option.

Follow the data 

You don’t need to be an enterprise-level charity processing millions of dollars in online donations to apply some of the same best practices used by large organizations. Such principles help charities take a data-driven approach to decision-making and ultimately make them more effective at their mission. Charities should set their assumptions aside and follow the data to best serve their donors. That means studying donor reactions to digital fundraising content and allowing that data to shape your strategy going forward, even if it feels counterintuitive to what has worked in the past. When organizations listen to their donor’s voices over their own, the results speak for themselves. For more incredible content and insights, listen to this episode!

Resources & People Mentioned

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Ben Johnson