Leadership
2021 brings us all hope, optimism, and the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of our staff, clients and the communities we serve.
2020 was certainly a year like no other. While we will not be able to fully move on from 2020 until COVID-19 is behind us, I am thankful that there are signs we will soon put the worst behind us. Vaccinations are beginning to be distributed across our country, our employees remain safe and healthy, and we all have a renewed energy and sense of possibilities as 2021 begins.
Immediate
Everyone faces challenges in their personal lives and work careers. Some of those hurdles are big and some are small with everything in between, but nothing in my experience compares to what we are going through with the current pandemic. Unprecedented in this case is an understatement.
Recent performance trends confirm that nonprofits are acquiring fewer donors than ever before and retaining less of the donors they acquire. Lackluster response rates in the low single digits continue to plague nonprofits' acquisition programs, while abysmal new donor retention rates remain in the mid-twenties. Nonprofits need new donors far more than new donors need nonprofits.
Inspired by our industry’s fundraising benchmark reports, Merkle RMG has published our first Nonprofit Donation Processing Benchmark Report. This report is a quarterly in-depth review of donation processing data to give nonprofits a view into the transactional side of fundraising.
Yes, “why are nonprofits losing half of their donors?” is an important question that fundraisers need to reflect upon. But it’s not the only question they should be asking themselves, and certainly not the most important.
What are we doing about it? is the million-dollar question, and the answer is sadly, not much.
This month I’ve asked Amy Bobrick, Vice President of Strategy at Merkle Response Management group, to share her journey over the past year of refining and realigning our Rapport offering.
Merchant Services from Merkle RMG: Lower Cost Credit Card Processing For All Fundraising Channels
Can you believe we're almost two months into 2019 already?! Hopefully you are on track with your fundraising plans so far and this includes growth in the number and value of donations to your organization. Minimizing the cost of processing those gifts while making it an easy, secure and positive experience for your donors is critical to maximizing the funds that go toward serving your mission.
The Future of Giving
Merkle RMG has been following ISO 9001 standards since 2002, and this month, we’re proud to share that we were just certified to ISO 9001:2015 — the newest and most rigorous version to date.
On May 29, Merkle RMG kicked off a project to expand and reconfigure these high-growth areas to support more staff and activity. But rather than broadening our facility footprint, we’re re-allocating our existing space to the areas that need it most — something we planned for when we bought the facility 11 years ago. This makes supporting our continued growth more sustainable and cost-effective.
As our resident IT wizard, Jim oversees security, connectivity, software applications and hardware, and facility/property management. We rely on him to ensure that our technology and infrastructure support Merkle RMG’s current operations, growth and emerging services.
