Key Nonprofit Highlights
GAP Ministries provides help to children, healing to families, and hope to their community. Located in Tucson, AZ, their core mission began with supporting foster children and has since expanded to include preventative measures to reduce the number of children entering foster care, as well as programs to heal families and help them regain stability. GAP cares for 246 foster children and teens annually in four family-style group homes and in individual foster families licensed by their agency. Their initiatives also include a food distribution warehouse, commercial kitchen, and post-incarceration job training program.
GAP Ministries struggled with clunky donor management, leading to delayed acknowledgements and a disconnect with supporters. Implementing Bloomerang transformed their donor management process, offering ease of use, comprehensive donor insights, and integrated fundraising and volunteer tools. This change led to a 60% donor retention rate, an 18X increase in their donor base, and an 8X increase in contributions over the past decade.
Challenge
Disorganized donor management prevented lasting relationships
For an organization with big goals, GAP found their donor management process didn’t align with the spirit or speed of their mission. “At the time, the system we had for our donors was so clunky,” shared Development Director Tiane Kennedy. “We didn’t really have any way to keep it in our system. It was just in accounting.” Without a CRM, donor data lived in spreadsheets and paper trails. A week could pass before Kennedy even knew a gift had arrived—making it impossible to promptly thank supporters or nurture lasting relationships.
“It made me feel in the dark,” lamented Kennedy. “I felt the worst about that—like we were not really making people feel like we appreciated their gift, that it even made a difference.” GAP Ministries’ programs depend on strong community partnerships. “Our donors are my people,” she shared. “Our donors want to make a difference in the world. We give them the opportunity to be part of something bigger than themselves.” To honor that partnership, Kennedy needed a system that could help her steward donor relationships with care, gratitude, and insight.
Solution
Building donor engagement with the unified Bloomerang Giving Platform
After exploring multiple options, GAP Ministries chose Bloomerang for its simplicity, ease of use, and heart for nonprofits. They’ve now been loyal Bloomerang customers for more than a decade. “We looked at a lot of different programs,” Kennedy recalled, “and we chose Bloomerang because it had the best ease of use. I loved the dashboard—it did everything we needed it to do.”
From the CRM to fundraising tools to volunteer management, Bloomerang gives GAP Ministries a complete view of every supporter. “I literally have it up all day long. It’s always one of my tabs,” Kennedy said. The GAP team especially loves the donor insights built into the platform: “I love that feature where it breaks donors down into mid, major, and general—and where it shows if they’re retained or new. I can get an overview of each constituent at a glance.”
Bloomerang Fundraising made it easier than ever for supporters to give online. “We added Bloomerang Fundraising for the donation forms,” shared Kennedy. “We just started using it this year and they are so much more modern looking and easier for donors to quickly give. That is what we love about it.” And when GAP added Bloomerang Volunteer, the decision was just as clear. “Since we were already working with Bloomerang and were very happy with it, we looked into the volunteer platform,” explained Kennedy. “We needed something to replace the one we had before that didn’t work at all, so Bloomerang was a natural choice for us.”
Results
Growing donor retention to 60% with Bloomerang’s donor stewardship tools
With Bloomerang, Kennedy has transformed donor relationships into a thriving community of generosity. “We are very proud of our donor retention rate of 60%,” she shared. “We have a consistent program of what we do when donors come into our funnel. And I really love the phone call task we receive for first-time donors as a Bloomerang feature.”
In their decade-long relationship with Bloomerang, GAP’s donor base has grown 18 times over, from 560 to over 10,000 constituents, and donations have increased consistently year over year. Ten years ago, GAP Ministries’ total contributions were $224K. Last year, that number grew to more than $1.89M, an increase of over eight times! “Every year we keep increasing our donations,” Kennedy said. “There’s no way we would have grown that much without Bloomerang. You have to take care of your donors, and we wouldn’t have been able to keep up without a CRM.”
GAP Ministries is proud of their partnership with Bloomerang, frequently sharing the unified Giving Platform with others. “I’ve told lots of other development directors about Bloomerang,” said Kennedy. “Customer service is second to none. I can chat with a real person who just helps me do it. It’s fabulous.” And in turn, Bloomerang is honored to stand alongside GAP Ministries’ mission—helping them turn supporter data into connection, first-time gifts into loyal donors, and generosity into impact.
