The FAMCare Blog

Nonprofits mostly start with great ideas and big hearts trying to address a problem nobody else seems to care about. From Doctors Without Borders to Feeding America, Americares Foundation, Direct Relief, and United Way Worldwide, there are countless examples of large, successful nonprofits around us—but even these were only just ideas at some point.

Many nonprofits may have started around the same time as these successful ones, but we don’t even know about them—probably because they’ve ceased to exist.

As a budding nonprofit, here’s what you need to avoid.

Refugees create unique issues for human services organizations, especially when it comes to creating and maintaining an accurate database to manage the care they need. One of the main things you find with onboarding the refugees into your database is the difficult nature of getting accurate data. It is hard to track that information and store that information and then to get your database to talk to other databases that data.

Your nonprofit organization has been growing and helping more people on a regular basis. You have good case workers who care about their clients and making a difference. Have you reached the point where investing in the right case management software could propel your organization to a new level, while making your case workers more effective at their jobs? Here are some tips to see if you’re ready to take that next step.

As a nonprofit case worker or administrator, you have a lot of decisions to make every week. And unlike some other jobs, the decisions you make can have a huge impact, not only on your organization, but on the lives of the people in your care. Having the right nonprofit software solutions can make those decisions easier and gives you the information needed to make the best decisions for everyone involved.

In the past we’ve discussed the many benefits of nonprofit software solutions and how they can help you in your day-to-day functions. For example, the correct software package can help make data easier to get to, utilize and learn from, affecting strategy and funding. This helps contribute to a more positive workflow. But nonprofit software solutions can also bring about positive change in another way- the people in the organization itself.

In recent years, funders are demanding that social service organizations analyze their program activities and outputs in a more meaningful way. For agencies to just say they are “doing good” is no longer enough. Organizations now need to justify costs by demonstrating program value. They must be able to justify their programs and funding by illustrating the quality of their services and show that their programs are producing meaningful outcomes that are aligned with larger policy priorities.

With over 100,000 adoptable children in the United States, helping improve the adoption process with the right social services software is something we are passionate about. The length of the adoption process can vary by state but having the right software in place can help improve the process for all parties involved.

We’ve already discussed how nonprofit software solutions make it possible for your organization to focus more of its time on the mission, but we’d like to take it a step further. Not only can the right software solution provide an organization with more time to focus on the mission, it can also help you manage relationships better.

Time is always of the essence in the nonprofit world, with many organizations left feeling like there just isn’t enough time in the day to get everything accomplished. Looking for ways to work towards achieving your organization's mission while managing the day-to-day tasks?

If you’re like most agencies, the people you serve have come to you through a referral process.  Being able to track where you get your “clients” or “kids” or “students”, etc. (for this article let’s refer to them as clients) is vitally important to your business model.  Clients may be referred to you through the schools, courts, hospitals, jails, DHS, and other organizations that provide complimentary services.