Portfolio Test

Think of Portfolio as an “enterprise CRM solution” (CRM = Constituent Relationship Management) specifically designed for large nonprofits.  It provides support for managing all types of information, including contact information, demographics, attributes, relationships, notes, activities, gift and pledge transactions and more is provided. It also supports comprehensive tracking of all outbound and inbound communications.

Support for multi-channel direct marketing/fundraising is the centerpiece of the Portfolio system. Portfolio was specifically designed to fill the niche that the mass-marketed, “one-size-fits-all” solutions miss – nonprofit organizations with special requirements.

As a full-service direct marketing agency, Amergent knows firsthand the importance of having excellent tools for supporting all manner of direct marketing activities.

Portfolio provides tools for high-level, strategic campaign planning, “start-to-finish” campaign execution tools, powerful multi-dimensional segmentation processing and the complex analytical reporting necessary for success in the high-volume, highly targeted, multi-appeal approaches for nonprofit organizations.

The Campaign Management and Segmentation functionality provided with Portfolio is extremely powerful and flexible and truly distinguishes the Portfolio system from other solutions – especially for organizations engaged in high-volume, multiple campaign fundraising activities.

Appeals can be organized by Campaign within the system and Campaigns can be further organized within Programs, and so on. The system supports a flexible, multi-level structure that allows clients to organize information about their appeals and campaigns in a manner that provides maximum usefulness to everyone from marketing staff to senior management.

The system can track cost information associated with each appeal to provide necessary results and performance reporting. Portfolio stores additional data about each appeal that is coded, tracked, and used in reporting. This includes acquisition list information, list broker information, special promotion rules, acknowledgement rules, etc. All of this data is available and used by Portfolio’s Appeal and Campaign analysis reports and is available for reporting users developing ad-hoc reports.

With Portfolio, an entire Campaign Year can be budgeted and planned in advance, even copying and using data from previous years’ campaigns as a starting point. Recurring jobs like acknowledgement runs can be set up as “standard jobs” that are automated for timely execution on a regular basis.

Portfolio has all the tools necessary for managing high-volume “Lockbox/Caging/Import” feeds from remittance processing systems, third-party processing vendors, websites, and other systems that may need to pass data to the core database. Portfolio’s caging management functionality includes complete error checking and audit trails to ensure that all data being entered into the system is done in the most efficient and error-free manner. Utilities for correcting errors in vendor caging batches are easy to use.

Portfolio also provides functionality for processing “white mail” and other gifts directly into the system along with easy-to-use, fully audited functionality for performing gift reversals, adjustments, and other corrections to gifts that have already been posted. And, an interface to clients’ accounting systems will is set up as part of our system implementation to ensure that any gift modification will be automatically passed to the accounting system keeping both systems in sync.

Portfolio incorporates “moves management” with “tracks” that can automatically be assigned to donors/prospects to aid in following the cultivation steps for particular types of gifts. This functionality is also useful in the cultivation of grants and other large gifts from institutional and foundation donors.

Portfolio supports the relationship building and cultivation activities required for Foundation, Major, and Planned Gifts. The system can assign and manage contacts, store a detailed history of all correspondence, keep detailed notes, assign to-do’s and ticklers, attach documents, link with wealth identification data, store in-depth asset and demographic profiles, send e-mails and record emails directly from within the system, and link directly from a donor/prospect record to a website.

Portfolio allows clients to track all manner of volunteer information, including biographic and demographic data, volunteer interests, skills, certifications, availability, hours, recognition, and reporting on volunteer activities. It also allows clients to create schedules and fill openings for various volunteer shifts and links directly with Portfolio’s Event functionality.

Portfolio also allows for setting up Events, from venues to various activities within the event to the tasks required and the volunteer labor (shifts) that need to be filled. It also allows for the creation of an unlimited number of event items – everything from tickets to t-shirts – and the proper marketing and fulfillment of the items depending upon price points and event.

Portfolio was designed from the ground up as a completely web-based system and provides the flexibility for authorized access by on-site staff, remote users, and even third-party vendors such as caging vendors and/or direct marketing agency consultants, if needed.  All that is necessary is an internet connection. The opportunities for remote users to access real-time information and interact with the database live are virtually endless.

Portfolio has very powerful reporting capabilities based on Microsoft’s SQL Server Reporting Services Platform. All reports are accessed through an easy-to-use browser-based interface. Running an existing standard report or creating powerful ad-hoc analytical reports including graphical representations of report data can easily be done.  All fields in the Portfolio database are available to the reporting tools, providing incredible flexibility for analyzing information in the database. Reporting users can schedule important reports to run automatically on a regular basis (hourly, daily, weekly, etc.).

Security can be configured to only allow certain users or user groups to have access to certain screens and types of data. The system provides for user and user-group based security that controls View, Add, Change, and Delete access to various data in the system.

All security rights are easily managed by the System Administrator(s) through a central security module. Security rights are assigned to “user security groups”, which have the appropriate level of rights based on each job function.

There is also system auditing that tracks not only who made changes and when, but also the old and new values with a complete history of changes.

Portfolio has the ability to send special alerts to a predetermined user or group of users when some activity takes place in the system. This can be donor specific, appeal specific, etc.

In addition to these types of alerts, Portfolio also has alerts to help manage day-to-day activities. Reports that notify staff of upcoming donor birthdays, anniversaries, and other important dates are available, and the tickler file reminder function provides daily “to-do” lists for all users to make sure nothing slips through the cracks.

Helpful alerts, warning messages, and help messages are also configured throughout the system to aid in system navigation, warn of required data entry fields, and provide other help to users.

In almost every implementation of Portfolio, Amergent is asked to develop some type of report, interface, and/or integration with the organization’s accounting system. In some cases, our system simply provides reports to the accounting department of the organization, which are then re-entered manually into the accounting system. In other cases, we have developed complex interfaces that allow Portfolio to directly pass data to the accounting system. In most cases, we pass summary information by General Ledger Account number, with Portfolio acting as a sub-ledger system, maintaining the details of each transaction.

Amergent is very familiar with managing large system implementation projects, so we understand the crucial need to take into account all of the various interface and integration points with other systems and vendors that allow clients to successfully complete their day-to-day activities. As part of our Discovery Phase, Amergent works with clients to identify all potential interface/integration points and explore potential options for making the new system as efficient and flexible as possible. This can include a combination of simple import/exports, regularly scheduled and automated uploads and downloads, more sophisticated system integration, or access to data from multiple applications through a web-based portal or dashboard.

We take the time to understand each client’s unique needs as needed and factor in enhancements to implement a complete solution. Each Portfolio implementation begins with a comprehensive Needs Analysis/Discovery Phase to identify the installation, conversion, customization, and training services necessary to provide a successful implementation.