For the past six-plus years, I had the privilege of representing one of the world’s finest institutions, Tufts University, as a frontline fundraiser. It was truly an honor to work with the generous alumni and parents who supported Tufts’ mission.
While at Tufts, I was fortunate to soak up tons of fundraising knowledge from some of the sharpest professionals in our industry. I also learned that fundraising is hard! It has always been (and will always be) hard. There’s no silver bullet for improving alumni engagement and raising more money.
But can you leverage modern technology to make fundraising easier? Certainly—and that’s where EverTrue comes in.
My time at Tufts was incredible, but all good things must come to an end. At the turn of the year, I joined the EverTrue team.
Why? It’s simple: I believe in EverTrue’s mission, vision, people, and products. At Tufts, EverTrue was my trusty tool that enabled me to work smarter and faster as a major gift officer. Its crisp, clean interface empowered me to access donor information via mobile and web. Plus, the platform’s social insights from LinkedIn, Zillow, and Facebook were invaluable to shaping my prospect engagement strategies. EverTrue’s products are only getting better with time, and it’s incredibly exciting for a development nerd like me.
Did EverTrue empower me to easily sort donor data so I could be enterprising and creative in my prospecting efforts? Yes. Did I identify major gift prospects who had slipped through the cracks? Yes. Was it effective in helping me build a major gift pipeline? Yes. Did EverTrue transform my workflow (e.g. Google Maps integration) and make me a more effective, efficient fundraiser? Yes.
Is EverTrue the silver bullet? No. But can it help improve fundraising operations for your big, medium, or small advancement team? Absolutely.
It is 2017. Technology is rapidly changing (e.g., Uber, Amazon, and Netflix), and for the most part, I believe it’s improving the quality of our lives. Why should advancement professionals be left in the dust?
[bctt tweet=”Technology is rapidly changing. Why should advancement be left in the dust?” username=”evertrue”]
Remember: fundraising is hard, technology can make it easier, and in my humble opinion, EverTrue is doing just that. Our solutions for alumni relations, annual giving, prospect research, and gift officers are challenging the status quo, and we are excited to partner with forward-thinking advancement professionals across the country to advance advancement.
Fundraising is hard. Join us on the journey to make it easier.
I will be attending the upcoming CASE District I and CASE District IV conferences on behalf of EverTrue. Email me at chris@evertrue.com if you’d like to connect and share your ideas about the future of our field. I’m all ears.
Learn about EverTrue for Gift Officers in this post by EverTrue CEO Brent Grinna.
Chris Pinault is a sales executive at EverTrue and formerly served as an associate director of development at Tufts University. You can connect with him on LinkedIn or on Twitter @ChrisPinault.