Key Nonprofit Highlights
Helping Up Mission in Baltimore, MD is dedicated to serving the most vulnerable individuals in their city and community, helping break the cycles of homelessness and addiction. Their holistic approach, which addresses physical, intellectual, social, and spiritual needs, has proven transformative for long-term recovery. By leveraging Bloomerang’s integrated platform, they enhanced the donor experience with custom donation forms, replaced an outdated point-of-sale system, consolidated merchant accounts, and adopted peer-to-peer fundraising. These changes helped them raise $3.6 million over three years through 34,000 transactions, while simplifying processes for their team.
Challenge
Simplifying processes with a user-friendly nonprofit fundraising software
As a growing nonprofit, Helping Up Mission needed a solution that would not only simplify their processes, but also unlock greater fundraising potential. Director of Philanthropy Kristopher A. Sharrar, CFRE, described the necessity of a seamless giving experience for donors: “Online giving has to be a good experience, and Bloomerang provides that.”
Solution
Bloomerang Fundraising is an integrated platform for nonprofit needs
Helping Up Mission partnered with Bloomerang Fundraising, leveraging the platform’s adaptable features and tools to revolutionize their fundraising process. Together with a trusted collaborator, One&All, the Bloomerang team worked closely with Helping Up Mission to add custom CSS to their donation forms, making them visually engaging while maintaining ease of use.
What initially began as an online giving focus expanded rapidly with Bloomerang’s diverse capabilities. “One specific tool, the Virtual Terminal, helped us to eliminate a point-of-sale system,” noted Sharrar. Bloomerang Fundraising not only simplified operations for their finance team but also allowed Helping Up Mission to consolidate multiple merchant accounts. The platform proved its adaptability during an in-person gala, where Helping Up Mission seamlessly accepted live donations. “It was great to be able to be off-site and easily accept donations.”
As the organization continued to explore Bloomerang’s offerings, they adopted its peer-to-peer platform as “one more way to bring our online fundraising activities onto one platform.” As Sharrar emphasized, “An integrated platform is very meaningful—nonprofits don’t want to manage all of these different systems.”
Results
Raising $3.6 million in three years by using Bloomerang Fundraising
Since partnering with Bloomerang Fundraising, Helping Up Mission has seen remarkable results. Over three years, they successfully processed 34,000 transactions, equating to $3.6 million in funds raised. The streamlined, accessible nature of Bloomerang’s tools provided both donors and staff an easier and more effective way to interact with their mission.
“We’ve been saying yes to additional capabilities, and I know we still haven’t tapped into everything Bloomerang has to offer,” said Sharrar. “We look forward to the possibilities!” By eliminating redundancies, enhancing efficiencies, and driving donor satisfaction, Bloomerang enabled Helping Up Mission to focus more on their purpose: transforming lives and creating lasting change.
