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Succeeding with your Fundraising CRM System

The purchase, installation and implementation of a CRM system is only the beginning. Once your system is up and running, you are able to gather multiple types of data from a number of sources, but what do you do with it all? The results you receive from your fundraising CRM are directly dependent on fine-tuning your handling and processing of the data you’ve entered, as well as ensuring your staff are trained to work with the system.

What does your data reveal?

Your CRM will be a success when it has your client needs at its core. However, it also needs to be data-driven, which means that you must gain an understanding of the data your system provides. This involves not only knowing what data you have, but what data you don’t. In knowing these, you can get the insights you need to transform your CRM into a truly creative solution for your organisation.

Data Evaluation

It’s also important to remember that not all data will hold value for your organisation. Any data in your CRM needs to be assessed. Regular assessment of data will reveal patterns which you can look at to further determine which data is serving your organisation, and which data is not.

You must also work to ensure all of the data in your CRM is complete. Specifically, the data covering your donor preferences for things like communication. This will avoid the risk of sending communications that a donor may not wish to receive, which can result in them withdrawing their donation or pledge to donate.

Clarifying Data

Working to ensure that data is not only complete, but accurate can go a long way to improving your future operations. Direct communication with donors to ask whether they wish to be contacted by your organisation in the future can actually clear up much confusion. This includes all donors, seasoned and new.

Of course, once all of this is done, it can help greatly to ensure that complete collection of data occurs right from the start of the process.

Making it workable

Once you understand your data, it’s time to make it work for your organisation. Any data that comes from different sources such as contact information and transaction history, should be assessed for things like communication preference and historical donation amount.

Once this is done, your organisation can transform your view of donors, allowing you to treat each one as an individual rather than a statistic. And it’s this personal connection that will allow you to develop and nurture the types of long-lasting relationships that lead to regular donations.

This information can be used in many ways; you can communicate with donors in such a way that focuses on their exact needs and send relevant content, eventually eliminating generic and non-personal communication entirely.

Staff Confidence

A CRM system is only effective if your staff are confident with the information held. Every staff member must be confident that they can use your system properly, otherwise, your solution will not be used to its full potential. Involving them as much as possible in using the CRM system will allow it to become second nature, thereby increasing their confidence in the system.

It can also help to anticipate any potential issues that your staff may have with your CRM system. Giving them the in-depth training will not only ensure their confidence, but will also result in the seamless handling of customer data you receive in future.

An effective CRM system will tell you just how well your donors are engaging with your communications. However, in order to know this, you must perform regular analysis of how these communications are being recorded.