This semester with NOAF has already been jam-packed and full of excitement! After kicking off the semester by thanking all of our EOY donations, I began looking back on all of the previous donations NOAF has gotten since its inception in 2012. In total, we’ve received almost 2,500 donations! This information is incredibly useful since it can reveal patterns about our donors and the success of our events. So after a push from one of our co-founders, NOAF’s board has decided to take a huge step in getting Salsa Labs, a database used to help nonprofits with both fundraising and advocacy. Not only will it completely revamp our website, but it’ll make everything easier from gift processing to sending out our newsletters. Yesterday was my first day getting acquainted with the system, and I already love it so much.
But wait! Even more change has come NOAF’s way! The organization has recently hired two new part-time staff members, one of whom will focus on grant writing and fundraising. Tara has been an amazing help and a well of information. She’s taken the lead on a number of events giving me time to focus on implementing Salsa. This involves me taking a number of online courses to learn the ins and out of the system as well as converting all of our donation records into the correct format for it to be input. And all of this must be completed as soon as possible so that NOAF’s new website can go live. It’s been in the works since November of last year, and we’re waiting on setting up a new donation platform as well as a number of advocacy projects (e.g. petitions). We’re counting down the days until it’ll be up!
Looking forward, our calendar isn’t letting up anytime soon. Our biggest fundraiser of the year is at the end of April, and our gala will be in early June. There will also be a number of smaller events leading up to get our members and volunteers pumped up before the two commence. Furthermore, Tara has initiated numerous fundraising meetings that are teaching me the ins and out of NOAF (fun fact: All of our overhead costs are covered by grants- not donations). I can’t wait to see how it’ll all play out!