Software4Nonprofits Blog

Further to my earlier post at http://www.software4nonprofits.com/blog/2011/04/membership-plus-database/, I want to let you know that I have completed coding the conversion of data from Membership Plus (versions 5 through 12) into DONATION. (Actually, only about 5 of those versions have been tested, but the missing ones can be added as needed.)

The current release of DONATION, 3.37b, includes the conversion routines. When you start DONATION for the first time, if Membership Plus is installed, you will be prompted to convert your data from it. Or, you can convert later with the Database -> Import -> From Membership Plus menu option. I haven’t made a general announcement to all existing DONATION users of this new version, because it is more of interest to new users than existing ones.

As well as converting the basic organization info, it converts the Membership Plus members to donors, funds to donation categories, and contributions to donations. The last two years of contributions are converted.

Hello DONATION beta testers and advisors. I’m writing about two things: a beta-test version that includes importing data files from the United Church of Canada’s PAR (Pre-Authorized Remittance) service, and the purchase of the business of a smaller competitor (Wincrafters).

If anyone is using the PAR service, you may already be receiving with your monthly information about the donations they are processing for you, a text file containing details of those donations. (This is as opposed to a readable report on them.) If you aren’t receiving the text file, you can request it from them. If you have that file, you can now import it directly into DONATION, as long as all of the donors have envelope numbers that PAR knows about.

If you want to try this, it is in the beta-test version 3.36b Beta1 available at www.software4nonprofits.com/pretest.htm. As usual, if you do test this, please let me know how it goes!

The other interesting news is that I have recently completed what is basically a purchase of the business of a smaller competitor – another one-man church software business, but he is 71 years old and ready to retire. The software is The Church Assistant from Wincrafters.

The way the deal works is that he has written to all of his about 300 users, informing them of his retirement, that he will be stopping selling The Church Assistant immediately, and stopping supporting it in 6 months, and encouraging them to switch to DONATION (which has been enhanced to convert much of their data after installation). I’m offering them DONATION at a 50% discount for the first 6 months, to make this a less painful switch. And I also get his mailing list, so I can follow up further with those who haven’t switched. If course, there’s a cost to me - in essense, he gets a 50% commission on all sales to his former users, for the first year. Hopefully this will be profitable for both of us, and in addition, it stops his users from being left without support, on an orphaned product, after his retirement.

There is a special website for Wincrafters The Church Assistant users considering switching/upgrading to DONATION, at http://wincrafters.software4nonprofits.com.

If you have any comments, as usual please just Reply to this blog, or email me if you don’t want your reply to be seen by others. Thank you!

For those of you who downloaded the beta version of DONATION 3.33b in response to an earlier post, I have to tell you that a slightly nasty bug was just caught in it. If you try to use the Email/Print button on a statement report or receipt, you get an error message at the end.

This bug has been fixed by version 3.33c, which I uploaded to the regular web site (not just as a beta version) yesterday. You can upgrade to it with Help -> Check for Updates.

Because of the impending holiday season, I’m not planning on sending an email out to all users about this version until early in January. For those of you for whom this time of year is special, best wishes for the Christmas season!

Hello DONATION beta testers and advisors.

First of all, I’m working on a significant revision to the web site. It’s not all done, but you can see the progress at www.software4nonprofits.com/new. The significant changes are a new introductory splash page, replacing the top bar and side bar menus with a top-bar drop-down menu on the rest of the pages, and a new quick links section at the bottom of each page.

Any comments?

Next, I’ve added a few cool features since version 3.33 that I last wrote to you about, and released a beta version as 3.33b Beta3. As always, you can download and try it out from www.software4nonprofits.com/pretest.htm. Here’s what’s in it:

• You can now double-click on backup files (e.g. DONATION4.DB.GBK) or emailed backup files (e.g. DONATION4.DB.S4B), and if DONATION isn’t open, DONATION will start and you will be prompted to restore that backup.
• Completely replaced the features of the Save As button on the report-viewing window. It now brings up a new window with clearer choices, and some new options like displaying your saved file in an appropriate program (such as Excel) after saving it, and sending it by email to someone.
• Made a small improvement in the installation programs, when you are upgrading an existing installation. Previously, if you had manually updated your desktop icon for DONATION to have a shortcut key to start it, whenever you upgraded that shortcut key would get lost. Now it is retained.
• Added information in the Network Versions of DONATION help page, explaining how they can also be used over the Internet (e.g. with the Network Server version of DONATION on a computer in your office, and the Network Client version at home).
• Added a new help page on Multiple User Options for DONATION, listing three options: multiple Standalone or Lite installs (copying the database around), Network Versions, or remote access.

If you have any comments on those changes, or testing results (positive or negative) I’d love hear them too. I’m especially pleased about the first two points above.

Thanks.