November 2005

Thanks so much to all of you who passed on or posted or linked to the Online Donations Report. We’ve had a tremendous response, which is very exciting. More than 500 people signed up to view the report in just the first day it was posted, and we’ve gotten many complementary emails about it.

We're thrilled to hear that people are finding it accessible and are really able to put it to good use.

While we’re all waiting for the online donation report to be released, I thought I’d write up a few thoughts about what I learned from looking at so many tools. As I mentioned previously, there’s a surprising number of really strong tools. In the report, I recommend 12 of them that are strong choices, based on different organizational needs. Then I list another seven that may make sense given a pretty specific set of needs. While there’s certainly some overlap between all these tools, for the most part they actually have different strengths and models - it might makes sense for most of these different tools to exist. It’s not, however, a market I’d be looking to introduce a new donation tool into.

One of the most striking things is how many of the tools offer integrated email tools or are in the midst of building this functional. Even some of the most clear-cut payment processing specialists are getting into the bulk email realm. If they can do a good job of it, I find this really promising – it shows a focus on what nonprofits actually want to do with donation tools and donation data, rather than a technology-centric focus on the type of infrastructure needed.