Nonprofits focused on healthcare have varying missions: some work to prevent, treat, and cure diseases. Some work to educate the community, some build hospitals and research centers, and some work to promote healthy lifestyles. Regardless of the mission, all these nonprofits share the mission of improving our health.
With that noble mission comes responsibilities. A few are unique to healthcare, but many can be answered by the right robust fundraising software.
CharityEngine is proud to partner with healthcare leaders like Pittsburgh Cure Sarcoma, National Neutropenia Network, Metabolic Terrain Institute of Health, and Batten Disease Support and Research Association. They have found that our unique software—we are the only authentic all-in-one fundraising platform—checks all the boxes, from security to efficiency and, importantly, to supporting results that change lives.
For this article, we start by listing some top providers you might want to consider. Then, we dug into our client files to figure out some of the features most appreciated by our healthcare clients. If you’re a nonprofit in this field, let us know if these fundraising software features are important to you as well.
Top Providers for Healthcare Nonprofits
Most nonprofits want the same things: engage supporters, raise money, and impact your mission. Underscoring all those goals is robust fundraising software. And we've got some good news! You have plenty of options when it comes to technology platforms. In this article, we'll list five we like, and we'll remind you of why CharityEngine should definitely make your shortlist.
1. Bloomerang is an excellent option for smaller or medium-sized nonprofits. While the functionality can seem a little limited, it gets the job done. When discussing healthcare nonprofits, they promise that the technology will take care of essential, time-consuming tasks, freeing you up to create change. It's a compelling sales pitch and a solid option for smaller nonprofits just looking for basic technology.
2. Bonterra is a big player in this industry. A single company (or the banks behind the company) bought up several smaller, popular CRMs (like Salsa, EveryAction, and Network for Good) and combined them, then rebranded as Bonterra. There's no doubt that all these combined CRMs offer extensive functionality. But talk to a Salsa customer and they'll tell you that you're at the mercy of corporate whims...your tech can be sunset and you can be forced onto a new platform you didn't choose.
3. Virtuous talks a lot about its responsive fundraising platform, which helps healthcare nonprofits build more meaningful relationships. It's a good CRM that offers automated donor journeys, filters for segmentation, and an in-app email builder. The platform does rely on integrations for full functionality, so you can't really get a 360-degree view of donors and campaigns, but it's certainly worth a close look.
4. Blackbaud is a database powerhouse, good for enterprise nonprofits with a lot of data to store (and some IT experts on staff). It's been around for a long time and is well known in the industry, and it touts its grateful patient programs for healthcare nonprofits. We hear about limited support and limited functionality (such as the events module), and each module is built as a silo. You don't have connected or centralized data.
5. DonorPerfect claims healthcare nonprofits can raise 171% more funds in the first three years of using DonorPerfect, and that's an impressive claim. The donor management functionality is rich, the platform is easy to use and affordable, and the customer service earns high marks. While some core features (like prospect research and advocacy) aren't available in the native platform, the bigger issue is that there's no native email functionality. Users must log into Constant Contact to send emails.
6. CharityEngine is, we believe, the top choice for healthcare nonprofits. We are privately owned and not for sale, but more importantly, all key functionality is native to our system. Centralized data is at your fingertips, at any moment, in real time. And when your nonprofit requires integration with specific third-party systems, we've got robust APIs so you can build a tech stack customized to your needs.
That's a taste of why nonprofits like Wounded Warrior Project and Easterseals choose CharityEngine. But what about our healthcare clients? What features of our software do they most appreciate? Let's take a look.
CharityEngine Meets the Needs of Healthcare Nonprofits
When we talk about technology to organizations like yours, the same pain points or concerns arise time and time again. While we could write a book (or give you a full software demo!) about how our technology is perfect for any nonprofit, we’ll walk through some common points specific to nonprofits operating in the healthcare space.
Here is a list of some of the most impactful aspects of working with CharityEngine.
No More Siloed Data
There are many ways a donor or supporter interacts with your nonprofit. They can respond to a direct mail plea, click on a QR code, and land on your online donation page. They can call in a pledge. They can attend an event or bid on an auction item. If you use a different platform for each type of interaction, your data is siloed. You can pull up a donor record and never really know if the Mailchimp sync has gone through or if your Eventbrite records are current.
CharityEngine breaks through data silos by having an entire platform comprised of natively built tools. This means your data talks to each other, all the time, in real time. When you pull up a donor record, you have a 360-degree view of every interaction that person has had with your nonprofit, regardless of the channel. Did someone make a note that a gift was in memory of a loved one? Or that a big birthday is coming up? You’ll see that, too. And the data is always shown in real time, so you know the moment a major gift hits or the giving history when a supporter calls.
HIPAA Compliance
HIPAA, or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, is a federal law that mandates healthcare providers (and their vendors) that can access protected health information to implement best practices to ensure the privacy and security of any health data. And it can’t be ignored! If you aren't compliant, you can be punished with anything from a penalty to a criminal offense.
CharityEngine takes data privacy quite seriously. We are SOC 2 certified and PCI certified, meaning all donor data, including financial data, is stored and processed with the highest level of security. We respect any regulations or laws designed to protect the privacy of our community.
Understandably, the question of our software and HIPAA compliance is often asked. The answer is an easy one: CharityEngine does not receive or store any information that would jeopardize HIPAA compliance. While we are an all-in-one platform, we also offer powerful APIs for clients who must integrate with a third-party system, and healthcare clients are that type of client. Those vendors might process and store HIPAA-protected data, but the onus is on them to prove to you that they’re compliant.
Customizable Forms
From your donation forms to your event registration forms and even your P2P forms, you will have access to multiple templates…or you’ll have the ability to extensively customize any form you want. Ensure your branding is consistent and you are including the fields that will result in the data you want to collect.
And we’ve optimized our forms to be highly effective. We offer one-click giving and one-line address entry, both of which have been proven to increase conversions. Single sign-on means that because all our tools are in one system, there’s no additional login to a payment processor.
Reliable Payment Processing
Payment processing is native to our system, too. Because we are directly communicating with the biggest card companies (no other vendor can say that), there aren’t middlemen extracting fees as your funds pass through the system. That means more money for your nonprofit.
Different donor segments want to give differently, so we’ve built this into our system. With CharityEngine, you get secure credit card processing, in-house ACH processing, and virtual wallets – so donors can give however they want. They’ll give more often.
While we have the SOC 2 and PCI certifications we mentioned, we also offer patent-pending advanced fraud protection. It’s 99% effective at preventing sophisticated fraud attacks before they hit the payment processor. You’re almost entirely bulletproof against fraud.
Perhaps the biggest benefit of our payment processing is that we help clients retain the 15% of donations lost through most payment processors. In a nutshell, nonprofits lose revenue from monthly donations due to credit card declines. Only specialized subscription billing technology can retain that 15%, and we're the only payment processor serving nonprofits offering this technology.
Multichannel Outreach
While donors like to give through multiple channels, you have the best chance to reach them and make an impression if you employ a multichannel approach. Maybe a prospective donor throws away your direct mail piece. They might see the email you send, or they might pick up the phone when you call. Engaging your donors with the same message through multiple channels will increase your engagement results, whether it’s donations, volunteers, or even lobbying and signing petitions.
Regardless of which channels you want to include in a campaign, they’re baked into our fundraising platform. Email marketing automation, major gifts, advocacy, events and auctions, peer-to-peer fundraising, and even text-to-give are at your fingertips. Your constituents can engage in many ways and over many channels, but all that data will be right there, in real time, waiting for you.
Robust Database and Customizable Dashboards
We can’t conclude this overview without explaining what you can do with all the real-time data you collect with CharityEngine. The system collects information from every source, giving you a complete, always-updated look at your donor data.
Then, there are almost 100 out-of-the-box fundraising reports you can run on your data or custom reports to drill down into any metrics you want to see. Reports can be mapped to customizable dashboards, so you can zoom out and spot trends or areas needing your attention.
Do you need insight into when to ask for a gift, or how much is reasonable? Our platform leverages artificial and business intelligence, as well as tens of thousands of data points, to share giving probability on donors. We take the guesswork out of fundraising.
Fundraising Software for Healthcare Nonprofits
If you’re a healthcare nonprofit looking for new fundraising software, this list is just the beginning of the ways CharityEngine can help you reach new heights. Whether you want to use the out-of-the-box features or completely customize a computerized tribute wall (as BDSRA did!), we can take your great ideas and make them work.
When you’re ready to explore your options, give me a call. I’ll share more stories and reasons why CharityEngine is the perfect partner for healthcare nonprofits.
