DonorExpress NewsLine

Hello From DonorExpress Software
This newsletter is a publication from the staff of DonorExpress Software. Our intention is to share with our DonorExpress users and other interested organizations valuable operational information along with TIPS on how to better use our software. We hope that you will look forward to receiving this newsletter. Please feel free to respond back with suggestions for future issues. Comments

Interesting Thought To Ponder
Technology is rapidly changing the world we live in. Many organizations who attempt to compete in this realm get tossed into the technology barrel with everyone else who chooses this path. Many times an organization can be creative and stand out from the herd by relying on a little old technology.

"If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap.
If you want happiness for a day, go fishing.
If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody."

- Chinese proverb -

Technology Addiction
Our current society is bombarded with information overload at all times. Our minds are being trained to seek visual stimulation from all directions. This stimulation has created addictions with most of us and especially our young people. If you are in denial about this addiction, I challenge you to have your cable disconnected for a month. Our society is forcing us to look at different ways to get our message recognized

Make Understanding Easy
While reading a book recently, I noticed that the writer's style was very hard to follow until the author sited an example of one of his points in a story. The story presented the information in a format that made understanding a difficult concept easy. It was a subtle reminder that in the past, story telling has always been a way of communicating difficult social and religious behaviors in a form that is easy to understand.

The Art Of Story Telling
The art of story telling has been lost to technology. Most people can not remember what they watched last night on TV but my kids can still remember the story I told them one Halloween while riding home from the daycare. They sat spell bound the entire ride as I described to them The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and the fate of Ichabod Crane. To my kids, Halloween will always remind them of that one story told almost 20 years ago.

Create An Image With A Story
The point is that story telling can be one of the most compelling ways to get your message across to your donors. A well created appeal letter should leave a mental image in the mind's eye the same way a well told story does. Appeal letters full of facts and figures are very informative and sometimes necessary but do little to create a mental image. Expressing your message in a story is a very powerful way to touch those you are trying to reach.

Summary
Creative thinking comes from the mind and not the television. Do your appeal letters inspire your donors or inform them? Be very clear on what you are trying to achieve with every correspondence you send out. Your appeal will extend far beyond those who receive your letter when you can create a message that tells your story so persuasive that the readers are compelled to pass it along to others.

DonorExpress TIP Of The Month
DonorExpress software is designed to try to give the user as much control of their data as possible. Many users have found all their reporting needs already in the software. Other more adventurous souls have mastered the Simple Criteria Export function to create their own reports or exports. We have other users that have a mastery of Microsoft Office tools and utilize the Excel Query tool to create queries from the DonorExpress data file.

Here are a few simple ways that any user can take data analysis a step further.

1. When you create a report in DonorExpress, you can quickly publish this report to Microsoft Word for editing or analyzed it with Microsoft Excel by using the Microsoft Office link on the toolbar. Sometimes when you publish to Word, the lines do not appear the way they are on the reports. When you analyze a report with Excel, you may need to play with the spread sheet to get it to look right (delete columns and rows that are on the report but not needed in Excel).
2. Reports that are generally used in conjunction with mailings have a built-in export to Excel. The exported data will contain the report data plus the demographic data for doing mailings. Reports that can be exported will have the Export Option enabled in the Printing Options on the Report Selection Screen.
3. The most powerful reporting tool is located under the Admin Tools/Letters and Mailings/Simple Criteria Export. This is a simple query tool that will allow the user to create simple queries of the data. Then the information may be displayed in a printable report or exported to Excel for a mail merge or further analysis. With this tool you can create an export to Excel with information from a general query and then do detailed filtering and totals. Excel seems to be a tool that more users are comfortable using for data analysis.

Add A Friend
If you know of someone in your organization who is not receiving our newsletter and would like to, please click Here. Be sure to include their name and e-mail address.

Privacy
All information collected by our web site or personal contact will be for the sole use by DonorExpress only and will not be sold or shared with other companies or organizations. We treat this information with the same respect that we expect concerning our own.

Opt-out
If you do not wish to receive any further messages from us about DonorExpress Software and would like to be removed from our E-mail list, please Click Here.

Thank you for your time and interest in DonorExpress Software.
Bob Holder
DonorExpress Software
PO Box 1126
Boone, NC 28607
828.264.2577
info@donorexpress.com
www.donorexpress.com