Wildly Efficient:

THE SOLUTION

Building a Data Habitat with Donorfy

When they set out to find a new solution, they were drawn to Donorfy because of the team’s deep experience with both technology and the charity sector. Though Donorfy didn’t have a fully developed membership module at the time, the team loved what they saw, and became instrumental in shaping the membership module that they - and other charities - now use daily.

We worked closely with Donorfy to help develop the membership functionality, especially when it came to things like renewals. They were incredibly responsive to our needs and, to this day, the team remains contactable, available and responsive,” says Liz.

Tracking and Managing Memberships

Donorfy has become essential to the Trust's management and streamlining of their membership programme. It allows them to set up different membership products, add them to constituent records, and oversee them through reports and Donorfy lists. They can also create gifted memberships and easily track when a payment instruction is cancelled on a supporter’s record.

(Illustration above shows an example gift membership, using dummy data)

One of the key features they utilise is Membership Status Rules, which helps them consistently manage the status of memberships. These rules, combined with the “paid up until” dates recorded for each member, allow them to easily monitor payment statuses, ensuring timely reminders and renewals.

We use Donorfy’s status rules to track memberships becoming due or being cancelled, and it’s helped us automate what used to be a very manual process," explains Liz.

In addition, the admin transfer button helps them manage membership renewals when a new Regular Payment Instruction (RPI) is set up. This ensures that, when a member renews, their history is maintained and they’re not mistakenly treated as a brand-new supporter.

Efficient Payment Processing

The Trust has taken full advantage of Donorfy’s flexible payment processing options. While Donorfy offers integration with GoCardless for automated Direct Debit processing, the team opted to handle Direct Debit submissions to BACS manually, driven by their specific needs. Using Donorfy’s Direct Debit file generation, they can easily create the necessary files directly from the platform, reducing admin time.

We generate a Direct Debit file out of Donorfy and then use that file to submit our payments to BACS. The flexibility to do this ourselves has been really helpful," Liz explains.

Seamless Data Imports:

Donorfy’s data upload abilities have been game-changing for streamlining processes, thanks to a customisation created specifically for them by the Donorfy team. Like many face-to-face recruitment teams, they use tablets to onboard new members and the process of uploading new member data has been made much simpler and quicker -  this feature saves them around half a day’s work each time! It highlights Donorfy’s flexibility, too.

Our recruiters’ tablets feed data directly into Donorfy via CSV uploads, and it’s so much quicker than before. We save a lot of time uploading new members now,” Liz adds.

Personalising Member Relationships:

Donorfy’s membership features allow them to track connections between constituents, too. This has been particularly useful for gift memberships, where one individual might purchase membership for another. Additionally, they use Tags to categorise members by engagement or interests, such as those who are also volunteers or donors.

“Being able to quickly see the relationship between members and their other activities, like volunteering or donating, has been really helpful for us. It gives us a more complete picture of our supporters,” says Liz.

(Illustration above shows an example Donorfy tags, using dummy data)

Smarter Reporting:

With Donorfy’s powerful reporting tools, the team generates detailed membership statistics in half the time it used to take, giving them clearer insights into their members’ engagement and the success of their recruitment efforts. The best part? Running monthly membership data checks now takes just 30 minutes, instead of hours.

Donorfy’s Campaigns feature is key to tracking performance. By assigning campaigns to membership drives, they track response rates, costs and ROI, giving them deeper insights into what’s working and where improvements are needed. Additionally, the Lists feature helps them ensure data accuracy and target members for specific communications, including renewal reminders and engagement activities like anniversary postcards.

Our monthly membership reports are so much easier to run now. Donorfy’s reporting tools allow us to pull these reports together in half the time,” says Liz. “We create Lists from tags for everything, and recent feedback from the Business and Finance Committee was how pleased they are with the membership reporting. I love the new dashboards and visualisations too!” 

(Illustration above shows an example membership dashboards, using dummy data)

Streamlining Communications:

Donorfy’s Mailchimp integration allows them to send targeted communications to their members, ensuring each interaction feels personal and relevant. This integration has been invaluable for introducing their “family membership e-news” and keeping members updated on conservation projects and upcoming events.

We’ve set up Mailchimp audiences for different member groups, and the fact that it syncs with Donorfy makes it easier to stay on top of our engagement,” shares Liz. “Our members love the personalised touch we can offer now, like our handwritten postcards and anniversary letters. They really feel like they’re part of something special.”