There's a lot to be told about KTS Software’s activities over the last year, starting with the firm’s acquisition by US-based Best Software Fundraising Systems, immediately preceded, early last year, by KTS’ two Canadian partners being acquired by Best, and followed by the launch of GT Pro, the enhanced successor to the established KTS giftTRAQ, and, finally, punctuated by the latest Best acquisition, AccPac, March 3. Best Software is a Canadian company that has been successfully marketing several packages in the nonprofit sector in both the US and Canada for about 25 years.

Former KTS Account Executive, Michael A. Dailey, now Senior Account Manager at Best, filled us in on the latest Best packages, as well as the recent mergers and acquisitions. The firm’s Rainbow software was designed for United Way, and is widely used in the US and Canada, but we focused on GT Pro which, says Dailey, competes head-on with Blackbaud’s Raiser’s Edge.

The updated GT Pro was launched last October, with more than 100 new elements, and now, with Best’s formidable financial resources, the former KTS organization plans to ramp up its marketing more aggressively in Canada.

To evaluate the user experience with the software, we interviewed Uxbridge Cottage Hospital Foundation’s Executive Director, Joanne Gray, Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada’s Office Administrator, Sandy Horodyski, and Muki Baum Association’s Christine McLaughlin, Senior Co-Ordinator of Special Events, Public Relations and Development.

All three were impressed with the scope and flexibility of the report-wiring module of the new GT Pro, which they feel has made their lives easier, as the software guided them through setting up fields, records and functions tailored to their respective organizations.

Productive out of the box

The secret seems to be a decent set of defaults, crucial with software such as this, designed to be used by non-expert staffs – sometimes using temp help, or empowering adjacent departmental personnel to handle account management functions themselves. That lets such varied users track and manage donor data and status updates, complete with easy customization options without the need for expert-help requirements.

There’s also a general consensus about GT Pro’s generally intuitive functionalities, enabling even untrained novices to be productive almost immediately on the program’s installation. While the trio mentioned no discernible impediments to getting productive on the basic functions, McLaughlin emphasized this, pointing out that she’d come into the foundation as an untrained temp, never having been exposed to any kind of donor-management or CRM software before, and found herself able to work with the donor-management/tracking programs immediately.

Moreover, she told us that when, after some months of working with GT, she finally took the Best Software training course, she found herself able to function more effectively, having learned all sorts of power-functions, macros, etc., that streamlined multi-step functions into time-saving versions.

Pre-training productivity

In addition to the easy report writers, McLaughlin found the quick-entry system also a breeze to use: A family of familiar-looking templates proved easy to set up, typically in five to 10 minutes; and then the current entry functions typically take less than a minute each. (She adds the reason the templates had such familiarity was they strictly adhere to the Windows look-and-feel, so anyone familiar with other Windows-based productivity software would find similar functions in the same, anticipated, place as with other office packages.)

McLaughlin adds that, while her foundation doesn’t issue eTax receipts, the communication and database output functions automatically generated (printed) output receipts plus individualized acknowledgement letters for all donors, along with a three-part receipt. She concludes “GT Pro is a powerful tool to use. It's quick and intuitive.”

Horodyski tells of experience reaching further back, as she was involved in the 2001 switchover from a competitor’s product to GT Pro. She reports that, being a cautious organization, her foundation ran the two programs in parallel for the first three months, to guard against conversion problems, or unexpected concerns.

Growing workload triggered search

It may be an over-statement referring to the prior program as “competitive”, since it was Microsoft Access – the software giant’s full-powered, but somewhat challenging, database program. Readers will sympathize with the uncertainties of non-expert office staffs having to do everything manually, including defining fields, records, and security levels.

The growing workload forced Horodyski’s office to begin looking for simpler ways to manage and verify basic donations and automate the forms-generation involved in acknowledging donations, issuing receipts, and keeping track of the whole donation structure, from reminders to tax records.

In addition, Horodyski found the database was getting large, slow and unwieldy; and the organization was looking for a superior solution that addressed database liaison better in matters such as who the donors were, and how to optimize both such sources’ contributions as well as the internal organization’s time-effectiveness in tracking and managing the ensuing data.

“I went online in search of software for nonprofits, Horodyski recounts, “and we found six possible products.” The list was quickly whittled down to three. One was quickly eliminated, when it turned out “they didn't understand our business.” With only two remaining candidates, the foundation embarked on extensive demonstrations and testing, and GT Pro got the nod.

The switchover to the new system, which had shown itself to be trustworthy and functional, took place in January 2002. “Now, the database could be used by all,” she says. For example, the software caters to the different needs of various foundation people like the person who does special events, e.g., golf fundraisers.

A friendly learning curve

Amplifying the functionality of the report writer modules, she found the learning curve was as benign as one could hope, and the database structure could be developed as needed, adding new fields and functions when required, and when someone had time to tend to them. Meantime, the basic system ran quite nicely, leaving more sophisticated goodies for later nodes in the development process.

Horodyski contrasts this highly effective, non-stress approach to getting up and running on new software against other offerings, some of which might have taken up to six weeks in training courses: “How much can you retain after six weeks?” she asks, emphasizing her preference for on-the-job training. With KTS/Best, she says, formal training consisted of visits to the firm’s offices, followed by their expert staff’s coming to the site to help with specific issues, as needed. Today the Brain Tumour Foundation has six sets of GT Pro (with a staff of eight)With this complement, she finds she can manage fundraising result data from 15 event locations, instantly capturing information on who donated what, who did the collecting, and other important information that lets the foundation utilize its database to improve overall performance.

Upgrade from DOS

The upgrade experience went back even further at the Uxbridge Cottage Hospital Foundation, a small hospital with about 5,000 active donors. Gray says the foundation started back in the ’90s with a DOS-based version, then upgraded to Windows-based giftTRAQ, and finally went to GT Pro. Each generation, she found, was progressively more user-friendly; and the happiness of her PC-based life comes at month’s end when reports are generated, automatically and accurately summarizing everything the fundraising professionals need. Gray finds her assistant, also using the program, is quite happy, since everything is easier and quicker.

The group decided to automate fundraising activities about 10 years ago, when the importance of developing centralized, accurate, co-ordinated information resources became obvious, with on-line access and reduced waits for reports. Again, Gray emphasizes the user-friendliness of the Best software and the ease of training herself and staff, opting for a three-day training module at KTS (vs a five-day course). Among the unique aspects of the hospital’s GT installation, she says, was that it didn’t really need a membership module per se, but it did have to add a tribute module for memorial announcements and such – adjustments readily made by the Best specialists.