The Foundation for Developmental Disabilities uses CauseVox to run campaigns, events, ticketing, and online giving without adding more complexity to its small team.
Foundation for Developmental Disabilities + CauseVox
Outcomes
- 3-person team
- Nearly $450K raised through CauseVox
- 30%+ year on year growth
The Foundation for Developmental Disabilities (FDD) supports individuals with developmental disabilities throughout San Diego and Imperial County.
And the entire fundraising is run by a team of three.
As Director of Advancement, Jill Weber handles fundraising and ticket sales for FDD’s events. She also manages the organization’s marketing. Like a lot of small nonprofit teams, everyone pitches in.
That means fundraising technology needs to make their jobs easier, not create more work.
“We really wanted to spend less time managing the technology and focus more on our mission and engaging with our supporters.”
That’s what led FDD to CauseVox.
Fundraising software built for a much bigger team
Before CauseVox, FDD was using a fundraising platform that simply didn’t fit the organization.
“Before CauseVox, we were using a platform that felt really cumbersome. It was really designed for a large organization, and us being so small, it wasn’t really a good fit.”
The system required too much manual work and made it difficult for the team to effectively manage fundraising campaigns and donor information.
For a three-person team, there wasn’t someone who could spend their day managing complicated fundraising software.
FDD needed something simpler.
“We needed something that was a little bit easier to use and better aligned with the size and needs of our organization.”
They found CauseVox.
Starting small and growing from there
FDD started using CauseVox in early 2020, just before COVID changed how nonprofits everywhere had to fundraise and engage their communities.
At first, the team was experimenting.
“We started out just kind of using it to see how it would work,” Jill says.
Virtual events gave FDD an opportunity to use online fundraising and ticketing more heavily. As supporters became comfortable registering and giving online, the team continued using CauseVox as its fundraising evolved.
Today, CauseVox supports multiple parts of FDD’s fundraising.
The team runs donation campaigns and seasonal appeals, sells tickets and sponsorships for major events, and even uses CauseVox ticketing to manage RSVPs for free community events.
And because the team already knows how to use the platform, adding another event or campaign doesn’t mean learning another system.
Making it easier for supporters to take action
For Jill, one of the biggest benefits is how easy it is to get a campaign or event in front of supporters.
FDD can share a CauseVox link through social media, email, or anywhere else they’re communicating with their community.
“It’s been really, really easy to go in and send people links. We’ve been able to link everything on our other social media pages, which has been super easy to do.”
And when someone clicks, they can get the information they need and take action in the same place.
“They don’t have to go to two different sites… it’s kind of a one-stop shop.”
That’s important to Jill because fundraising technology isn’t only something her team has to use. Their donors, sponsors, and event attendees have to use it too.
She says FDD hasn’t received complaints from supporters about being unable to navigate the experience or figure out how to register.
“It’s easy for the end user to go in and buy tickets. And I think that helps our success.”
Run the next campaign without starting over
Making fundraising easier for supporters is only half the equation.
It also has to be easy for the people running it.
FDD runs many of its campaigns and events year after year. Instead of rebuilding everything from scratch, Jill can clone an existing CauseVox campaign, update the content and visuals, and get the next campaign ready.
“It’s saved us a ton of time as far as not having to recreate the wheel every single time you want to do a campaign.”
For a three-person organization, those efficiencies add up.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” Jill says.
The less time the team spends rebuilding campaigns or figuring out technology, the more time they have for fundraising and engaging their supporters.
Bringing campaign and event fundraising together
FDD’s fundraising happens in a lot of different ways.
There are online donations. Event tickets. Sponsorships. Free event registrations. And larger gifts that may come in offline.
CauseVox gives Jill and her team a central place to manage their campaign and event fundraising activity.
On the back end, they can see donations, ticket sales, fees, and campaign results and pull the information they need for internal reporting.
“We don’t have to go to several different places to pull the data. It’s all together.”
That makes it easier to understand how an event or campaign performed without piecing together information from several different places.
And after more than six years on CauseVox, FDD is building a valuable history of its fundraising.
Jill describes herself as “a numbers person,” so that’s something she particularly appreciates.
“Being able to look at historical data and the longitudinal data, I think is really cool… being able to see the trend data and being able to see it go up.”
And it has gone up.
Since joining CauseVox, FDD has raised nearly $450,000 through the platform, while expanding the ways it engages supporters and raises money.
Fundraising software that fits the team
FDD didn’t need more complicated fundraising software.
It needed software that could help a small team do more without adding more work.
Today, three people are able to run multiple fundraising campaigns and events each year, manage ticketing and sponsorships, accept online donations, and keep their campaign activity organized.
And when Jill needs help, she doesn’t have to figure everything out on her own.
When she first joined FDD and had a question about CauseVox, she emailed the team expecting the kind of support experience she had come to expect from a large software company.
Instead, she heard back within hours and was able to jump on a call for help.
“You don’t get that kind of customer service anymore.”
That support has continued as FDD has found new ways to use CauseVox.
“You all are willing to jump on calls and show us different things and how to use them and suggestions on how to use them. So you’re not trying to figure it out on your own.”
For Jill, it all comes back to having fundraising technology that works for the size and needs of the organization.
“I would highly recommend you guys to anybody that wants to look at changing how they’re doing things, making things easy and making things compatible.”
Because for a small nonprofit team, the goal isn’t to become an expert in fundraising software.
It’s to spend more time fundraising, engaging supporters, and advancing the mission.
Spend less time managing your fundraising technology
CauseVox brings fundraising, events, donor management, communications, and reporting together so your team can spend less time managing tools and more time engaging supporters.
