National Council of La Raza
The National Council of La Raza's central goal is nothing less than to help shape a future of unprecedented opportunity and hope for millions of Hispanic Americans. Indeed, their mission is to ensure the collective voice of the Hispanic American population is heard "as never before among our nation's policy-makers and opinion leaders."
With such a mission, it's crucial the organization has the mechanisms in place to easily - and quickly - meet the needs of their community, whether through dissemination of information and resources, making it easy to join or donate, and render the highest level of services possible. 
Darcy Eischens, Director, Direct Mail and Membership Marketing, can attest to the importance of ease in this equation. As the largest constituency-based national Hispanic organization, NCLR serves Hispanic nationality groups in all regions of the country: NCLR has over 270 formal affiliates who together serve 40 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia - and a broader network of more than 30,000 groups and individuals nationwide. Their constituency reach is more than three and a half million Hispanics annually.
All of this translates into the need for web tools that are both easy to use internally, and easy for the constituency to use. To help them meet these needs, National Council of La Raza partnered with Groundspring for both DonateNow and EmailNow.
Prior to using DonateNow, the NCLR website required potential donors or members to click through five pages, whether renewing membership or joining one of their many programs. They knew this had to change, and when their provider gave them less than one month to find a replacement, their web team conducted a search for an online donation vendor.
With the transition has come a more streamlined approach to online donating, joining, and receiving electronic newsletters. Now, with DonateNow, there is only one page people see to join, donate, or renew membership. According to Eischens, "That one change has increased our traffic dramatically; donations are double what they were last year. And that's an increase with no special appeals, no campaigns. It's because it's now easy for people to do what they want to, quickly."
She continues, "The ease of Groundspring's tools and the way the online donation is set up, provides an easy flow for the user. People signing onto our website get a pop-up window, and are then taken to one screen which allows them the flexibility to do a multitude of things."
There was also the classic issue of having control over one's own website. Before working with Groundspring, Eischens had to call vendors to make any changes to content or functionality. She recalls, "I had no control of it; I was at the mercy of the vendors to do the work I needed done. There's nothing like being the captain of your own ship, particularly when it's your work that is being evaluated."
Today, when Eischens comes into her office, it's not unusual for her to find a donation in her inbox. This would not have happened as often before. "What is wonderful about using DonateNow is that using one simple page, people can either join as a new member, renew their membership, or have the option to participate in our giving circles." NCLR's giving options include the "Leadership Circle," "Ernesto Galarza Circle" and the "President's Council."
The organization was so delighted with the ease of implementing DonateNow, they decided to move their messaging service to EmailNow. Eischens had been ready for a switch. "We had another messaging service which had caused us some serious problems," Eischens recalls. One such problem was the inability to handle foreign language characters. For an organization that serves the Hispanic American population, this was a formidable issue. "The Hispanic language has all sorts of special characters and accents, and this other messaging could not handle them," says Eischens.
The National Council of La Raza uses EmailNow currently for their monthly e-boletÃn, which for Eischens means less hassle: "Knowing I don't have to worry about the characters and the ease of inputting the HTML and sending it out, means it's less time consuming."
In terms of speed in getting the new tools integrated into the website, Eischens put DonateNow and EmailNow through its paces. "I was up and running in a couple of days. Using another vendor would have required a much higher learning curve."
"Groundspring has these tools down to a fine art - they already know what I want. That's a real asset," Eischens acknowledges. "The best part is that someone else really thought it through - things I don't think of when building my own system. They truly know what nonprofits want and need. The proof is in the pudding; we set it up in no time. When we had to leave our donation vendor, we had less than a month to get something up and running. This was no problem for Groundspring."
Eischens continues, "In terms of finding the right vendor, it's a fine line between going with what you really need, and what is overkill. For us, Groundspring represents what we really need. Many vendors have so many options and choices, you don't know what you're supposed to be using: Maybe this way, or that way?"
Says Eischens, "There is no question - Groundspring provided the greatest amount of service for the best price. Their services are just shy of what other competitive ASP's could provide, and for a whole lot less. With some of the more expensive services, I felt like asking, 'what part of non-for-profit do you not understand?"
