The web can be an excellent tool for fundraising. A web page, for example, gives your organization added visibility and accessibility (especially valuable if you don’t have a facility), and is an excellent marketing tool. But a caution on the amount of effort devoted to internet fundraising: while it is important to get in on the ground level with internet funding, don’t allocate a huge amount of your time and resources to it.  Although growing astronomically, online donations accounted for only 1.2 percent of donations made in 2004 in the U.S.. (the situation in Canada appears to be similar). Keeping that in mind, there are some great online tools for aiding with your fundraising efforts.

Many not-for-profits are purchasing fundraising software. But there are good programs you can download for free that will give you the means to manage your fundraising plan. Two excellent sources are:

www.software4nonprofits.com., a Toronto-based software program that is best-used for keeping track of donors and donations and issuing receipts. A free feature-limited Lite version is available, and the full paid version allows for a free 60-day evaluation period. It also offers an excellent help feature, and mail-merge letters.

You might also want to look at www.etapestry.com, which offers free internet-based software for organizations with under 500 donor records.

More fundraising and funding information sources:

Charity Village: In July, 1995, CharityVillage® went online as an online source of information, news, jobs, services and resources for the Canadian nonprofit community. Today, the site includes more than 3,000 pages of information. http://www.charityvillage.com/cv/main.asp

Big On-line Canada: The Source for Funding Information A paid subscription service -- The Big Database contains informatoin on foundations, funding organizatoins, etc.  http://www.bigdatabase.ca/

Imagine Canada: Imagine Canada is produced by two leading voices of Canada's charitable and nonprofit sector: the Canadian Centre for Philanthropy (CCP) and the Coalition of National Voluntary Organizations (NVO).  http://www.imaginecanada.ca/

UBC Database of Funding Resources: A list of largely research-oriented foundations and associations.  www.orsil.ubc.ca/funding/otherfunding.htm

If you are a registered charity with Canada Customs and Revenue Agency and want to set up an online donations system, sign up with www.canadahelps.org. This is the best tool for receiving and processing online donations. Donors can go to either to your site or the Canada Helps site, donate, and receive a printable charitable tax receipt. Then Canada Helps transfers the money to your organization’s account. Registration is free, but there is an automatic charge of 3% per donation as a transaction fee. Registration also allows you to put a “Donate Now” button on your website and to customize your organization’s page on the Canada Helps donations portal.