Considering Investing in a Nonprofit CRM? 4 reasons why a nonprofit CRM is a great investment
Considering Investing in a Nonprofit CRM? 4 reasons why a nonprofit CRM is a great investment
Searching for a nonprofit CRM can be overwhelming. But to meet your fundraising goals - in the long run it is critical for success.
Nonprofits have too much on their plates as it is. Planning fundraising events, marketing work, managing supporters, launching campaigns, processing donation receipts, and working with board members. You have many hats to wear, right?
And as if that isn’t enough, the burden of the pandemic has been forcing mission-driven organizations to think creatively of new ways to engage and serve their constituents.
To say it can be time consuming, inefficient and downright messy without the right tools is a huge understatement.
At cloudStack Services we have taken the time to put together an outline of all the critical components to consider when choosing a nonprofit CRM.
What is a nonprofit CRM?
A nonprofit CRM is a software tool that stores and manages everything you know and cherish about your organization’s members, donors, and beneficiaries in a central location.
It can do a dizzying number of things, too. Such as integrating with your website, automating emails, connecting with your accounting software, adding a new type of supporter to your system, issuing tax-compliant donation receipts, and increasing charitable giving through personalized messages.
And more!
A CRM is also an orderly way to segment and slice the data to make informed decisions that convert to fundraising success.
How a CRM can benefit your nonprofit
No doubt, a CRM can strengthen and expand opportunities that support your core mission.
From segmenting supporters by interest areas, to maintaining strong constituent relationships, tracking membership activities, and simplifying the donation process, a CRM can empower your nonprofit to manage your data effectively and confidently.
It will allow your entire team to feel the purpose in their work by having a system that takes care of the major (not to mention menial) day-to-day administrative tasks like:
tracking donations while campaigns are in progress
automating acknowledgments and receipting
recording every interaction with a constituent
managing your finances and accounting
assigning volunteers to activities
pulling analytic reports
Sounds good, doesn’t it? There’s more. You can seamlessly integrate and sync your CRM with other third-party applications to manage your specific fundraising needs, like QuickBooks, Gmail, Mailchimp, and DocuSign, among many more.
Why you need a nonprofit CRM
During the pandemic fallout, many nonprofits were using technology that didn’t hold up well. In order to communicate effectively with donors and constituents, they had to evolve and adapt their data management systems to the new reality.
We’re in a time where supporters have come to expect highly personalized, customer-centric experiences. Technology that’s dated or hasn’t kept up with your organization can prevent you from delivering a great donor experience, working more efficiently, and ultimately raising more funds.
That’s why a CRM is a necessity.
You can weed out which parts of your operational process are time-wasters, giving you more time to focus on the important stuff.
Here are four reasons why a nonprofit CRM is a great investment.
Make your donors raving fans
Without donors, nonprofits can’t stay afloat. So, treat them like the valuable assets that they are.
According a 2021 study from the Fundraising Effectiveness Project, Americans opened their wallets big time in 2020 - increasing donations by 10.6% during the pandemic. The biggest boost was from new donors who gave more small-dollar gifts (even though at the same time, donor retention dropped by 4.1%)
People gave to organizations they hadn’t given to before, says the report. What this means is, there’s large opportunity for nonprofits to engage and nurture these new supporters for the long term, and talk about the good work they’re accomplished because of the support.
Handling and nurturing donor relationships with an outdated, manual system is a colossal task that involves many steps, people and responsibilities. Imagine: how awful would be to forget thanking donors for their gifts?A reliable CRM has features that make relationship management easier, so nobody gets missed. For instance, you can record every donor interaction you’ve ever had and what their giving habits are. You can set up reminders to send phone calls or thank you letters to major donors that they won’t forget.
Let your data do the heavy lifting
Analytical CRM tools make your piles of data available, clear, and relevant to your nonprofit’s needs. It can even serve up those “a-ha” moments to be better every year.
To make critical, real-time decisions, you have to trust that the information you aggregate is current and accurate. That’s a challenge if you’re pulling data from numerous platforms (email data, social media data, payment processor data, online fundraising data), where it’s vulnerable to errors and missed fundraising opportunities.
To get stakeholders onboard with a CRM investment, you want to show that it’s going to do more than just consolidate your data in a new software. It’ll impact everything from donor loyalty to data management, engagement to staff retention.
Equipped with those kind of visible metrics, your supporters and backers are much more likely to get excited about you investing in this tool.
Higher productivity and efficiency
Having all your major everyday activities in one place makes for easier workflow, better collaboration between team members, better project management, and a simpler way to track resources and costs.
With a CRM, task automation removes tedious tasks so your team can focus on more challenging work.
As mentioned earlier, dashboards and metrics can help you see the bigger picture of your mission and optimize several business processes.
Access your info from just about anywhere
Supporting your staff, regardless if they’re fully remote, in the office or a mix of both, will be critical to the success of your nonprofit in a post-pandemic world. CRM products and features will give your team the ability to connect, share ideas and get more done together, regardless of where they are.
Key CRM features to look for
The best CRM will have loads of features, but there are a few that are essential for you to consider. Here are four that nonprofits we’ve worked with have found the most useful.
Data Reporting
Your nonprofit CRM should be able to generate all types of valuable reports—from financial transactions to campaign performances to donor behaviour. A good CRM can even let you configure custom reports to give you a snapshot of which parts of your operations are working—and which aren’t. With those insights, you can develop more targeted and appealing outreach strategies.
Donor Management
Imagine having a complete view of all the interactions you’ve had with donors and the channels that spur them to take action. Or the ability to create donor personas, segments and tags. A CRM will give you the ability to log emails, calls, social media engagements and any other custom info that may help you nurture your donor relationships. Remember, the better your donor data, the higher your donor retention.
3. List Segmentation
Segmentation allows you to subdivide your contact list into any number of customized, smaller lists using tags and filters. You can segment by geographical location, demographics, donation amounts, interactions with your organization, and more.
By breaking down your lists, you can target, and more importantly, personalize messages to your leads and supporters to remind them that their gift matters.
Take Giving Tuesday , for example. On this day of global giving, you wouldn’t send your first-time donors and volunteers the same email. That’s because they’re at a different point on their journey with your nonprofit, and the message they receive should echo that. List segmentation lets you write specific messages to each group, letting you portray your ask in a way that inspires.
4. Omni-channel integrations
A CRM comes with built-in features, whereas integrations bring in an outside tool. You’ll either want a CRM that has all basic built-ins or one that supports integrations with the platforms you need like QuickBooks, Mailchimp, Eventbrite, and Shopify.
At cloudStack Services, we help nonprofits select and choose the right CRM for their needs and empower them with a strong CRM system that ultimately frees up staff time, improves operations and raises more fundraising dollars. For more information, get in touch with us at info@cloudstackservices.com.