What if your online fundraising provider goes out of business?
Howard Lake | 13 April 2007 | Blogs
US online fundraising consultant Rick Christ of NP Advisors asks a pertinent question in his latest edition of e-fund news: “What Happens if Kintera Goes Out of Business?” By which he means, what happens if your key online fundraising technology partner were to go out of business? Have you planned for that?
Putting it in UK terms, what if Justgiving, Charities Aid Foundation, Charity Technology Trust, or Bmycharity were to go out of business? For many charities these organisations process donations, handle or store donor information, handle email communications with supporters and more.
Of course, preparing for a major partner to go out of business should be part of any charity’s risk management and emergency preparedness activity, irrespective of whether they are online or offline. But more and more of charities’ information is being processed and transferred online – job recruitment, communications, volunteer management, and of course fundraising. The failure of an online partner could have a disproportionately devastating impact on an unprepared charity.
Needless to say, as Rick Christ pointed out, neither he nor we are suggesting that the organisations named above are in anything but the rudest of financial health. But all sound charities need to think about how to prepare for such an eventuality.
Christ gives five suggestions for how to do so:
“Talk to all your providers and start a plan that will give you a complete backup of all your critical data, in a common format, on a regular basis (at least monthly, but more frequently if your volume of activity is higher). This goes for web content, too.
If this isn’t already a feature of their service, negotiate a good price for it, set a timeline of no longer than 90 days, and hold them to it.
Test the data – if necessary, hire a database programmer to evaluate your backup data and make sure all the critical data is there. Be sure you can actually restore it to your “plan B” system and use it.
Review this plan at least annually as part of your organization’s overall risk management plan.
Join together with other users of your software to share information, tips, and backup plans.”
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.