Creating a bulk email using Progress and Microsoft Word. This is particularly handy for those times you need to send supporters a quick update on a situation, send them a link to a webpage, invite them to attend an event and so on.

Reaching your target by direct marketing requires accurate information about the person you need to engage with. You need a focussed approach, to ensure that you deliver the right message.

In a workshop session at the CharityIT Conference on 7 November 2007, Robin Fisk presented "Enhancing relationships in your contacts database via your website" 

Robin, together with Product Strategy Manager Jim Mathieson, explained the whys and the hows of integrating your website with your fundraising or membership database to enable 'supporter self-service' - and a whole lot more.

They demonstrated web site integration between ProgressCRM and ProgressCMS- Content Management System- in the form of a role play scenario showing a solution from both back office and supporter perspectives.

Choosing ProgressCRM for your hospice will enable you to reduce your costs and more, but why not also run a Light Up A Life (Lupal) Campaign?

Gift Aid is a scheme to encourage individuals and businesses to donate more money to charity. The scheme allows charities to claim 28p for every £1 donated by UK taxpayers (but excludes company donations). This will change to 25p in 2008! Act now!

Fisk Brett is happy to pass on this article by Ivan Wainewright, an independent Database Consultant. Fisk Brett hopes that its prospects will see that ProgressCRM ticks all the boxes... Published in Professional Fundraising February 2007

This article, by independent database expert Peter Flory, is reproduced with permission from Membership Today magazine.

If you use Contact History you'll be aware that contact history records can be assigned to yourself or others to follow up. For instance you might log a membership enquiry from a contact and assign it to be followed up by the appropriate person or department within an organisation. If you can get everyone into the habit, it's one of those simple business processes that can make a massive improvement to your efficiency. Download the summary page from here.

Create reports from your ProgressCRM database using Microsoft's SQL Server's Reporting Services. Reporting Services is included with SQL Server2005 and allows for advanced Business Intelligence type interrogation of the database, such as Data Mining and creation of data cubes for multi dimensional analysis.

This information is based on material from Microsoft's website.

In July 2007 Fisk Brett asked all Progress Users to help with an on-line survey. Here's the results

"If you wanted to make a donation to a charity, from a leaflet through the door or a TV appeal, would you want to be able to make a donation on their website? There is an increasing expectation that all charity websites will have the facility for you to make an online donation...."