Donated Software Helps Nonprofits Do More with Less

4D, Inc. software contributions this year continued to help important nonprofits bridge the gap between being in a financial pinch and being a more efficiently run organization dependent of less cash.

In the view of some nonprofits, software is often considered an administrative expense, something many boards of directors don't want to pay for. Brendan Coveney, president and CEO of 4D, Inc. says his company recognizes that challenge and that's why the San Jose-based database software maker has continued to donate software to worthy nonprofits.

“We believe technology should be central to a nonprofit's mission of efficiently connecting its services to those who depend on them," Coveney said. “It's how nonprofits do more with less."

Reliable and powerful software can help nonprofits run efficiently, which is so important in times of budget tightening and low grant funding. In years past, 4D has provided free software to a number of nonprofits, such as Nurses for Newborns Foundation, the Children's Inn at NIH and the internationally renowned Mum Puppettheatre of Philadelphia, PA, to name a few.

"The 4D software donation has helped us tremendously in saving time and money for our nurses," said Robin Kinney, co-founder of Nurses for Newborns Foundation. “And what's so great is that the 4th Dimension database program has a low learning curve." NFNF provides services to at-risk families to help prevent infant mortality, child abuse and neglect through in-home nursing visits providing healthcare, education and positive parenting skills.

Rather than hire more employees for data-entry, a centralized database was created in 4D so that all nurses could easily access and input up-to-date information.

"The 4D donation allowed us to keep our overhead low as we went to our full-time nurses using laptops and had them enter their own documentation, transferring it into the office every evening," said Kinney. "This changed our operations completely. Our staff now has up-to-date information on clients without extra overhead, allowing us to respond to doctors and social workers in an expedient and informed manner."

The Mum Puppettheatre, the 20-year-old international touring theatre company, was faced with a similar challenge before hooking up with 4D. After experimenting with a number of software programs, Robert Smythe, Artistic Director of Mum Puppettheatre, realized that the ideal program would be one that was specifically designed for the theatre industry, but would not be limited to box office administration, as theatre-specific software programs generally are.

Using 4D software, Mum Puppettheatre had created a program that efficiently served the entire organization from the box office attendees to grant writers. Its needs ranged from keeping track of patron donations, to updating mailing lists, to printing and selling tickets.

"Ticket sales data is generally not available to other departments in the theatre," Smythe said, referring to when using other software programs. “Box office staff can't be alerted when a major theatre contributor comes to a performance. Consequently, many organizations end up creating databases within each department, needlessly duplicating effort, wasting time, and becoming less efficient. And small arts organizations can't afford to waste anything."

Smythe needed a solution that would be flexible enough to work along with the intricacies involved in the theatre business, one that would give him the creative freedom he needed in developing a 4D program, and one that would also accommodate any demands that the theatre may have in the future.

The theatre staff used 4D Write, a word-processing program, to accomplish a number of everyday administrative tasks. Through simple confirmation windows and buttons, 4D Write provided the theatre staff with streamlined automatic processes, and certain types of correspondence could be automatically generated from their data. A ticket buyer's name and address information was collected when a ticket was purchased. 4D Write would then automatically generate membership renewal letters based upon renewal dates for that day. In addition, once a patron's donation had been recorded, personalized "thank you" letters would be generated as well.

The networking capabilities of Mum Puppettheatre had also increased tremendously. Now the theatre staff was able to share important information on donors and ticket sales without experiencing errors caused by duplicated data. In addition, 4D's ease-of-use enabled any staff member to make a ticket sale.

"4th Dimension's networking power meant that anyone in the office could pick up a phone and sell, print, and ship tickets from their own desktops," Smythe said.

Some nonprofits have been reluctant to incorporate new software into their operations, fearing the ongoing cost – in both money and time. But Nurses for Newborns and other nonprofits, have discovered the secret of 4D: The 4D Partner Program.

Through this network of software developers, NFNF has been able to find a computer programmer well-versed in 4D - to help the nonprofit evolve its original application into a truly scalable, customized program, without abandoning its initial investments

One of the wonderful things about 4th Dimension is that it is easy enough for a non-programmer to use, yet powerful enough for experienced developers to create truly top-of-the-line, cutting-edge programs," said Kinney.

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