Key Nonprofit Highlights
Girls Inc. of Jacksonville, Florida empowers girls to be strong, smart, and bold through evidence-based programs focusing on literacy, leadership, and career development. The organization, with roots dating back to 1970, is part of a national nonprofit youth organization that delivers programs through a network of 1,500 sites, including schools, community centers, and affiliate member organizations. Girls Inc. of Jacksonville significantly improved its donor management and fundraising efficiency by implementing Bloomerang CRM. They praised Bloomerang’s simplicity and intuitive platform, which streamlined donor tracking, enhanced data accuracy, and freed up staff time. The transition resulted in a 28% growth in donor retention, making Bloomerang an essential tool for their fundraising operations.
Challenge
Switching to Bloomerang from an overly-complicated system
Girls Inc. of Jacksonville sought a user-friendly and robust donor database that would allow them to easily access necessary information, run dashboards, and generate reports—without a steep learning curve. Their previous system of using multiple spreadsheets was overly complicated, making it difficult to learn and quickly retrieve data.
President and CEO Deidra Simon has seen firsthand how inefficient it was to manage donor relationships without a dedicated platform. “In my previous nonprofit leadership role, we did not have a dedicated fundraising database and relied heavily on Excel spreadsheets to manage donor information,” Simon explained. “The old way required hours of repetitive data entry, often leading to mistakes and frustration.”
Solution
Bloomerang improves efficiency and data accuracy
When Simon arrived at Girls Inc. of Jacksonville, Bloomerang was up and running, immediately standing out to her for its simplicity and structure. “I am truly grateful that Bloomerang was already in place when I joined this organization—it has made donor management and fundraising tracking far more efficient and organized,” Simon said.
Bloomerang’s intuitive, built-for-purpose platform has helped Girls Inc. of Jacksonville streamline donor tracking, enhance accuracy, and reclaim valuable staff time to focus on relationships as the heart of every nonprofit mission. “It feels great using Bloomerang!” Simon shared. “The platform is intuitive, easy to manage, and has significantly reduced the time spent on administrative tasks. It simplifies donor tracking, enhances data accuracy, and saves valuable staff time that can now be redirected toward building relationships and fundraising. I’m very happy the organization invested in this program as it’s been transformative for our donor management.”
The Girls Inc. of Jacksonville team relies on Bloomerang’s donor management and reporting features to understand giving patterns and identify opportunities for engagement. “Compared to a spreadsheet, Bloomerang is an excellent tool to help you to gauge donor giving and which donors are hot to cold,” she said. “This allows us to quickly isolate areas of giving in which we should be operating and focusing on our donor engagement and retention.”
Results
Bloomerang is essential to fundraising operations
Today, Bloomerang fuels a more efficient, data-driven development process at Girls Inc. of Jacksonville. “We primarily use the donor tracking and reporting features, which are essential to our fundraising operations,” Simon explained. “These tools allow us to easily monitor donor activity, generate reports, and make informed decisions about engagement and retention strategies—saving our team considerable time.”
Bloomerang’s automation and reporting capabilities have also introduced new ways to measure success. “I am grateful for the ease of inputting data, the automation, and the reporting of donor engagement,” Simon shared. “And I recently learned of the sustainability scorecard, which gives us an overall picture of our performance for the fiscal year.” On their most recent scorecard, Simon discovered a 28% growth in donor retention for Girls Inc. of Jacksonville. “This improvement is exciting and encouraging as we continue strengthening relationships with the goal of increasing retention year over year,” said Simon. “Any growth in this area is a win for us and Bloomerang helps us monitor this trend.”
When asked what she’d tell other nonprofits, Simon doesn’t hesitate: “If anyone is considering a fundraising platform, I would strongly encourage them to choose Bloomerang. It’s an easy-to-use, accessible resource that simplifies donor management and supports the long-term sustainability of nonprofit organizations.”
