A look back: 40 years of DonorPerfect

The DonorPerfect team is pleased to announce the promotion of Lauren Sheehan, formerly Vice President of Customer Care, to President of our company. Lauren’s voice of leadership for our clients is what makes her the ideal candidate to champion your growth. As our co-founder Nathan Relles retires and passes on the responsibilities of President to Lauren, we are more excited than ever for the future of this vibrant DonorPerfect community.

Read Nathan’s reminiscences about 40 years as President of DonorPerfect.

Nathan Relles

Co-Founder and President Emeritus

What are you most proud of in 40 years of developing DonorPerfect?

My proudest moments have actually been about our employees’ involvement with local nonprofit organizations. Some are our customers, and some not. The time they have volunteered for one of our Gives Back programs, or their contributions to local fundraising efforts, for example, has been nothing less than inspiring.

Personally, I am particularly proud of a campaign I helped initiate with an organization on whose board I served. The organization obtained matching funds from a few individuals, which inspired a substantial increase in the number of donors who contributed, as well as the average amount of each gift. It was the first of several years that demonstrated the success of matching gifts.

My single proudest moment is probably seeing Lauren take on the challenging responsibility of guiding the success of our customers. Her commitment to their success and her unrelenting drive to make DonorPerfect an easy, enjoyable, and effective tool gives me every confidence that she will achieve those goals.

How do you hope DonorPerfect will continue to care for its clients?

I hope that we will continue to focus on ways that we can help nonprofits succeed. Nonprofits know that the success and sustainability of their mission depend on retaining donors, attracting new donors, and increasing donor generosity. They just want to know how to achieve that, and it’s our responsibility to make that easier for them.

How has your relationship with our community changed since 1980?

When I started the company and in its early years, I had a personal relationship with our customers – the individuals who used our products themselves as well as those who relied on them. As we have grown, that relationship has been “handed down” to others. While I miss knowing and working with each and every customer firsthand, it’s most gratifying to see how others have adopted the values that have sustained those relationships with the same care that I tried to practice.

What will you miss most about working with the DP community?

Helping our customers solve problems, and helping our staff find the best ways to help our customers address their challenges.

As you begin a new chapter in your career and personal life, what causes, missions or organizations will you take with you?

It’s always been my mission to help our customers and our staff grow, learn, and succeed. For customers, that always meant 1) making our products easy to use, so that they could achieve results as quickly and effectively as possible; and 2) providing a cadre of support staff that understands our customers’ challenges and obstacles, and can help them overcome those obstacles with patience and enlightenment. As my direct involvement in the company subsides, I’m very pleased to see my successors continuing to fulfill that mission, and I am therefore able to devote more of my time to helping the boards of several organizations that I have served for many years.