Hosting Donor Information online

If you are a charity or a nonprofit, you will find that there are many instances where you are going to be handing the private information of your contributors and donors. This information can run the gamut from personal contact information to payment details, and one thing that you have to do is to make absolutely sure that this information stays in the right hands! Not only is the financial safety and privacy of the people who have been generous to you and your organization on the line, your professional reputation is too, and this is where you are going to run into the question of whether you want host your donors’ information online or whether you want to keep it locally.

When you get into the question of whether you want to keep donor information online or on your local network, the first thing that might occur to you is the fact that you would rather keep it close to home. Take some time and think about how you have secured your local network. The truth is that when you are dealing with information that is the least sensitive that you need to make sure that it is locked down tight. There are specifications that you need to meet in order to make your local network security good enough to meet professional standards.

Let’s face it. If you re in the business of running a charity, it is a good bet that you don’t have a lot of money to throw around on setting yourself up to be a fortress! Local networks are vulnerable to a number of different kinds of attacks, ranging from spyware, to malware, to outright hacking, and putting up the defenses that it takes to defend against things like that can take more time and money than you are willing to invest.

However, you will find that when you are looking at a service like an event software, or a donor database, more ofter than not, hosting your donors’ information will be much more secure than keeping them on your local network.

Hosting makes it also much more affordable to tie together event software, online donation and central clients database. You will find that this is a great way organize your data and to make sure that you can get the right information that you need at when ever you need it.