Mary is Executive Director of the Helping Hand Assistance Agency, a non-profit organization that provides support and services for adult caregivers. The Helping Hand Assistance Agency has been operating for eight years, and has seen growth in the number of clients served and the range of services provided. Mary has been in the executive director position for the last two years.

A factor that is critical to the agency’s success is its fundraising. Every year, Helping Hand has seen its donor list grow as word of its quality services spread throughout the region. Four years ago, the person who was then serving as executive director authorized the purchase of a PC-based system to manage all the data associated with fundraising and donations. The software that was purchased had an interesting history. The author of the software developed it in his spare time to assist a charitable organization with which he was involved manage its fundraising efforts. After developing the system, the author decided to market the system to other not-for-profit agencies. The price for the software was quite low, and the software did well in terms of initial sales. The author of the software promised little in the way of support for his product, however, and many of the agencies soon found that they could not adapt to some of the quirks in the software’s design. There was little that could be done to customize the software, and the author was either very slow to respond or was non-responsive to requests for modifications to the product. Eventually, the author notified all purchasers of the product that he was moving on to other ventures, and would no longer be providing support of any kind to the purchasers of his software.

The staff at Helping Hand Assistance Agency struggled to adapt to this software, and eventually got several of its routines to function correctly. They were unable to use all of the software features, however, and today, their fundraising system is a cobbled together blend of automated and manual processes. Sometimes Mary considers their fundraising success a miracle, considering the tangle of processes used.

The time seems right for the Helping Hand Assistance Agency to obtain another software package that will support their fundraising and donation activities. Mary wants to do a good job this time in finding an appropriate package. There is no question that software must be purchased; the agency has little IS expertise on its staff. Prepare a set of guidelines that Mary can follow that will assist her in selecting a suitable software package for the organization.