Open Door Mission chooses FTNI

Omaha’s Open Door Mission Streamlines Donation Processing

Serving the ever growing needs of Omaha’s homeless and near-homeless community for over 50 years, Omaha’s Open Door Mission constantly focuses on maximizing the impact of every donor’s contribution. This focus on the mission’s operation is clearly evidenced by the fact that their total administrative costs are just over 3% of their entire budget.

When Omaha’s American National Bank approached the mission with an idea on how they could further streamline their donation processing operation, they were quick to engage in the discussion. Having already implemented Remote Deposit Capture, the mission had realized benefits from recent Check21 legislation by depositing check images electronically. However, the staff at American National Bank believed that by utilizing a partner’s solution, additional operational savings could become available. American National Bank recommended that the mission consider FTNI’s award winning ETran ePayment solution.

While depositing donor checks electronically was helpful, reflecting those donations in their donor database and acknowledging the contributions was a much more manual process at the mission. By reading information from the donation coupon that accompanies the check, FTNI’s ETran solution is able to associate the contribution to the donor and to even identify the campaign that generated the donation. Once this association occurs, ETran then delivers the donation file, via an encrypted link, to the mission’s database, for posting to the donor’s account. By automating this process, staff time is saved, posting errors are reduced, donor acknowledgements are more quickly delivered and the donor’s giving history can more easily be matched to specific future campaigns.

"We appreciate American National Bank introducing us to the staff at FTNI. By consulting with the FTNI staff during the configuration phase, we were able to maximize the benefits we achieve from FTNI’s ETran solution”, said Richard DenHerder, Open Door Mission’s CFO. "ETran’s flexibility and ease of use, allowed us to quickly begin enjoying its benefits.”

Kurt M. Matis, President of FTNI added, “Organizations in a variety of industries have enjoyed the benefits of electronic clearing of payments, for some time. By extending the automation into the posting process, even larger operational benefits are available. We are pleased to be working with an organization that is as important to Omaha’s community outreach network, as the Open Door Mission.”