On Fri, 20 Sep 1996, Claire Holman Thompson wrote:

> I am wondering what those of you who track and manage membership data,
> iincluding mailings, etc. think about the software program you currently
> use.  We have about 2,500 members to whom renewals, thank-you letters,
> second and third notices, and assorted mailings are sent.  I find that
> EXCEL, which I now use, is slow and difficult to translate into Microsoft
> Word for mail merges.  It is also fairly cumbersome to track membership
> increases and other trends.

You need a real database program, not a spreadsheet that has some
database-like functionality. If you're in a Mac environment, then I don't
think you can go wrong with FileMaker Pro. It has been around for a long
time but has maintained its presence. It is extremely flexible and it is
*very* easy to set up. It handles mail merges into Word with ease. I'm not
so sure how well it will help you track trends, but I know that you can
easily export data from FileMaker Pro into Excel (or another spreadsheet
program).

I suspect that Excel is slow because you have a slow machine, not because
of any inherent problem with the program (I can't believe I am actually
defending Microsoft here). A dedicated database program might be faster,
but if you are using an outdated machine you'll have to take this into
account when looking for a program. Contact me offlist if you have (or
anyone else has) Mac questions.

Margaret A. Martin

Yale University
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