DONATION is a program used to track donors and donations, and issue receipts, for charitable organizations in Canada, the U.S.A., and elsewhere.

This Windows version was first used by Toronto Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in January, 1999 and has over 4,000 registered users as of November, 2007. The previous DOS version was used successfully for several years by Toronto Monthly Meeting.

DONATION is an excellent solution for small to mid-sized charities, churches and other faith groups. This application will prove it is user-friendly and easy to use once you install and try it.

DONATION has customized features and receipts for the U.S.A., Canada (including Quebec), and to a more limited extent Australia. Users in some other countries have experienced success with the program.

Here are some key features of "DONATION":

· DONATION records names, addresses and phone numbers of donors.
· It allows for the use of member or envelope numbers, if desired.
· DONATION allows for the specification of various categories of donor and donation.
· It allows for the recording of 3 user-specifiable fields about donors, plus a comments field of virtually unlimited length.
· DONATION can record an annual pledge amount for each donor.
· It records dates, amounts, donation categories and cheque numbers (or how the donation was paid) for individual donations.
· DONATION is very quick and simple to use - donors can always be picked from a scrolling list, or searched for with two different Find features.
· There is a special data entry form to speed entry of weekly donations, collections or offerings for churches.
· There is an optional limited-entry password for volunteers to do entry without seeing full details on donors or donation history.
· It prints over 30 different reports on donors, donations, receipts and categories.
· It has two different ways to create custom reports.
· DONATION allows you to export reports to various file formats, such as Excel or CSV (comma-separated value).
· It has a fairly powerful ability to create mail merge letters for one, all or some donors if you have Microsoft Word 97 or higher, or Corel WordPerfect 7 or higher.
· It prints numbered charitable receipts in a simple standardized format, plus mailing labels for those receipts (Note: In Canada, you have to have a charitable registration number to issue charitable tax receipts. While other organizations do send receipts, they cannot be used as a tax deduction, and the receipts printed by this program may not be suitable for that use.)
· It can print a receipt for just one donor, or for all donors with unreceipted donations, or for a selected subgroup of all donors with unreceipted donations.
· The receipts include a section to send with your tax form that just gives the total, an optional 2nd section with the details of each individual donation during the year, and a 3rd section with the totals by category of the donations.
· The receipts can be printed on tear-off forms and can be mailed out with window envelopes.
· It has different receipt formats for users in the U.S.A., Canada, Australia, and other countries.
· Canadian receipts properly handle what the Canada Revenue Agency calls "split receipting" - the handling of donations where the donor receives an "advantage", by the use of an optional Eligible Amount field.
· It can optionally print bilingual (French/English) or French-only receipts, for users in Quebec.
· DONATION can print duplicate receipts (e.g. if someone loses one).
· It can print corrected receipts (if something in the receipt was incorrect).
· DONATION can reprint receipts in a format of your choosing, using the mail merge features.
· It uses a powerful open source SQL-based Firebird database, and thus the data can be accessed for other purposes (with appropriate tools).
· DONATION can be used to store donations for multiple organizations on the same computer.
· It has a simple option to backup all of your data to floppies, your hard drive, or elsewhere (e.g. a writeable CD or USB memory key). It also has an option to restore such backups.
· DONATION reminds you to do backups of your database weekly, or at a frequency of your choosing.
· It can import files of donors from assorted file formats.
· It can import regular (e.g. monthly) donations.


Requirements:

· 800 x 600 or higher screen resolution, with Normal size Fonts selected in your Display settings, or 1024 x 768 or higher, if you are using Large size Fonts.


Limitations:

· The evaluation version can be only be used for 60 days
· The evaluation version cannot create real charitable receipts, only samples will be created.
· It is probably best suited to situations with about 2,000 or fewer donors because of the way it organizes its data. Also, larger organizations might want a more full-featured and customizable program. Technically, however, DONATION can store an unlimited number of donors.
· It can generate at most 9,999 receipts per year (another reason that you cannot have too many donors).
· It is not a full fundraising system. Use a larger and more expensive system if that is your requirement. This program is intended primarily for record-keeping of donors and donations, and issuing receipts.
· This program will not work on a 640 x 480 display, and part of the main window will be hidden if you use 800 x 600 resolution and Large size Fonts.