IN SEARCH HOLY GRAIL - causecraftconsulting.com

Using Salesforce as a Single CRM for All Supporter Data

IN SEARCH of the

HOLY GRAIL

2IN SEARCH OF THE HOLY GRAIL: Using Salesforce as a Single CRM for All Supporter Datawww.jacksonriver.com

Dear Nonprofit Reader,

Maybe you’re a fundraiser, marketing pro, organizer or IT person. Maybe you’re just really curious

about how to grow the following for a cause close to your heart. Or maybe you’re trying to get smart on

nonprofit technology so you can help others move the needle on social change.

We see you.

For years, we’ve heard nonprofit organizations talk about the dream of a single CRM: one database that

offers the elusive, comprehensive, 360-degree view of each supporter. The dream is to have greater

insight — and to be able to act immediately on those insights. In true nonprofit fashion, the dream is

also about deeper understanding, doing more with less, and harmonizing internal divides to provide a

cohesive experience for supporters.

The nonprofit-focused software companies are selling the single-CRM dream, too. They talk about it in

terms of business intelligence, marketing automation, seamless integration, and multichannel marketing.

After years of working with organizations pursuing this state of data zen, we know that there’s no universal

playbook for how to do it. But there are dozens of organizations who are already living the dream.

So we asked them: What does having a single CRM actually look like from a nonprofit’s point of view,

from the inside? And what does it take for nonprofits to pull this off?

Eight pioneering organizations, each of which has undertaken the search for the holy grail, shared their

words of wisdom, their enthusiasm, and their sometimes road-weary stories of what it took to get there.

This white paper is the result of their insights. We’ve tried as much as possible to let their words speak

for themselves, though we also share our observations as consultants who’ve been privileged to ride

shotgun alongside these sometimes-transformational projects.

We hope this white paper offers some snapshots of the terrain, as you consider whether the single-CRM

holy grail might be the next technology quest for your organization.

Yours in the search,

Misty McLaughlin & Alice Hendricks

Background

Who are we?We have this lucky perch because we’re two of the team at Jackson River, the makers of Springboard.

We heard what nonprofits were saying about their quest for the data holy grail and the need for powerful,

flexible online engagement software designed to work seamlessly with their single CRM. So we built the

digital platform that we believe nonprofits deserve, especially for Salesforce. It’s called Springboard; it

powers online fundraising, advocacy, events, and peer-to-peer; and we think it is the cat’s pajamas.


Introduction: What Holy Grail? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

What’s Included . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Holy Grail Seekers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Supporter-Data Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

Just Too Many Data Silos & Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Manual Staff Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Brittle Data Integrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Missing Actionable View of Each Supporter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Inability to Share Supporters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Lack of Internal Coordination Shows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Omnichannel Opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

A Single View, Available Everywhere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Operational & Competitive Drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Becoming a Learning Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Moving Beyond the Welcome Series: Supporter Journeys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Optimized Customer Experience: Multichannel vs. Omnichannel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Overall Technology Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

The Single CRM: Is It a Fit For Your Org? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Implementing the Holy Grail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21

How Long Will It Take? How Much Will It Cost? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22

What Else Do I Need in My Engagement Tech Ecosystem? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

Why a Phased Approach? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24

What’s the Best Order of Operations? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24

Lessons Learned on the Ground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Spend Time Making the Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Build a Core Team With In-House Expertise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28

Outsource Smartly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29

Streamline Business Processes & Manage Change Proactively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30

Involve Stakeholders in Requirements Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Build In a Transition Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32

Closing Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

About

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34

About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34

About Jackson River . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35

About Springboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35

Table of Contents1

2

3

4

5

6

INTRODUCTION: WHAT HOLY GRAIL?1

“It’s such an exciting time. It’s incredible that organizations like ours with limited funds can have access to the full power of the technology that the world’s leading major corporations are using. My advice would be not to be afraid of that. Embrace it. Seize this opportunity for your organization.”

– Jonathan Palmer, Executive Director, Strategic Technology, Wildlife Conservation Society


Organizations have been happily capturing and acting upon supporter data for a long time. So what

has changed?

Over the past 15-20 years, several institutional data divides have emerged. In many nonprofits,

Development departments have traditionally owned the Donor Management System, and Digital/

Communications have typically been in charge of “online fundraising.” Each department had

its own business rules and processes, not to mention its own supporter list. Accordingly, each

chose the software that best fit its distinct supporter group or cultivation need. Other departments

worked in similar ways — meaning that advocacy, volunteer, and grantseeker data, for example, all

lived in separate systems. While it was acknowledged that supporter overlap might happen, the

answer was seen as regularly having staff move data manually between multiple CRMs, or working

together to create multi-directional data integrations.

In the last several years, the landscape of CRM solutions for nonprofits has changed dramatically.

For example, Blackbaud has both acquired and sunsetted a number of donor-focused CRMs,

including Donor Direct (PIDI) and Team Approach. Many existing solutions have failed to keep pace

with newer, cloud-based offerings, making them increasingly difficult to administer and maintain.

And corporate-scale CRMs built to house customer data are being adapted for the social sector,

giving nonprofits broader choices beyond just the same old nonprofit-specific software.

These conditions have offered — and forced — many nonprofits to rethink their approach to their

data in the context of modern supporter-engagement strategies — prompting some to pursue the

elusive single CRM.

What’s Included

This white paper takes a deep dive into nonprofits’ efforts to consolidate different kinds of

supporter data into a unified CRM. The organizations we spoke with have primarily focused on

bringing together online, offline, advocacy, prospecting, major gift, planned gift, and volunteer data.

The organizations included range from mid-sized ($5 - $20 million in annual revenue) to large

($20 million and above), including two national, federated organizations with multiple smaller

affiliates that also adopted the single, organization-wide CRM.

We look at why organizations choose to undertake these large, intensive projects of combining

different types of supporter data; the benefits of pursuing this path; and what makes an

organization a fit - or not - for a single CRM. We focus on the common issues encountered,

related costs and timelines, and lessons learned in the single-CRM trenches.


While some ambitious organizations are trying it, we don’t focus here on efforts to manage

programmatic work, business operations (e.g. accounting, recruiting, or other internal functions),

or enterprise resource planning (ERP) within a single CRM.

Nor are these concepts necessarily limited to a specific CRM

system. However, all organizations interviewed for this white paper

are using Salesforce, a corporate-scale software platform that has

been carefully adapted in two versions for nonprofits: the Nonprofit

Success Pack (NPSP) and roundCorner’s NGO Connect. In our many

years of working with CRMs across the nonprofit space, we have

come to the conclusion that Salesforce is the only CRM powerful enough to serve as a unified

repository for all different types of supporter data. We recommend Salesforce to our clients because

of its tremendous flexibility and extensibility; the large ecosystem of other software solutions

available to create a comprehensive technology stack built around Salesforce; and its extensive,

passionate community of other nonprofit users.

Holy Grail Seekers(Our Sources)


SUPPORTER-DATA CHALLENGES2

“We officially had four CRM systems, plus Excel spreadsheets. My job was trying to sync some portion of the data across these systems. Attempting to do any sort of analytics was a burden. It was cumbersome to say the least.”

– John Mix, Senior Director of Marketing, Human Rights Watch

(formerly of International Rescue Committee)


Every organization has its data struggles, unique to its cause, strategy, and

scope. However as consultants, if we had a nickel for every time we’ve heard the themes in this

section...we’d be making a very large donation, indeed.

The most common points of friction that set organizations off in search of the holy grail include:

Just Too Many Data Silos & Systems

“We had to figure out how to get away from disparate contact lists and offline

donors being in Raiser’s Edge, and online donors being in Luminate Online.

These systems weren’t truly communicating with each other. We needed to find

a way to get all the information corralled together into one environment.”

Boris Sporer, Director of IT and Knowledge Management, Drug Policy Alliance

Organizational exhaustion from attempting to manage so many lists is the most common driver

to pursue a single CRM. In fact, many organizations begin these projects only to discover

previously-unknown lists, databases, or other repositories with key supporter info, such as

someone’s spreadsheet of event participants, or a single-purpose email tool used for a particular

type of newsletter. Inevitably, new data sources and channels will also emerge in the course of a

project, requiring an ongoing re-calibration of the organization’s commitment to a single CRM.

“Operationally, from the perspective of cost, maintenance, and training, to have

these four systems to get the job done was untenable.”

John Mix, Human Rights Watch (formerly of International Rescue Committee)

CMS + CRM

Fundraising

EmailPeer-to-Peer

CMS + CRM

Events

CMS + CRM

Advocacy

CMS + CRM

Grants Management

CMS + CRM

Volunteer Management

CRM

“A L L- I N - O N E ” O N L I N E S Y S T E M S

CMS + CRM

Old Sample Platform Ecosystem Diagram

In this model, organizations have multiple systems for supporter interaction and data collection, often including an “all-in-one” online tool and other point solutions, plus a CRM of record.

Each system has its own CRM data repository and, frequently, its own CMS.

Common Supporter-Engagement Technology Model


Manual Staff Work

“Cobbling together a bunch of different solutions for distinct purposes is incredibly

time consuming and complicated. It’s never the best approach. We were doing

weekly manual uploads of new supporters from our various systems that didn’t

have automatic integrations. We had an entire data team stuck doing low-level data

manipulation. Instead of an actual API, we were basically using humans as an API.

That’s neither efficient nor fun.”

Miranda Carter, Online Organizing Director, Food & Water Watch

Depending on an organization’s ambitions, even the simplest integrated reporting can require

extensive time from multiple staff performing imports and exports; cleaning, formatting, and

reconciling different data formats; troubleshooting errors; and creating custom reports. These

approaches tend not to use either technology or human power for what each does best. Worse,

we frequently hear the staff who are responsible for repetitive, manual data manipulation tell us that

this work is the most painful, time-intensive aspect of their jobs.

Brittle Data Integrations

“In our previous systems, Luminate CRM and Luminate Online, there was a lot

of data segregation. We pursued that package because we were promised that

it would all work seamlessly, and the data would map back and forth easily. In

practice, there were a lot of problems with the sync and the data that was needed

by multiple programs couldn’t be shared back and forth. Plus, using Luminate CRM

really limited the other applications we could use. There were a lot of other things

we wanted to try, especially for organizing, but they couldn’t work with LCRM, or

the process of adding on other applications would break things that we were

already doing.”

Miranda Carter, Food & Water Watch

Another common pain experienced by organizations of all sizes is data integration. Many orgs use

a combination of APIs, connectors, and custom solutions to cobble together a unified data picture in

one master CRM (often the donor database). While this approach can provide a “good enough” view,

depending on what the organization is trying to accomplish, these integrations can be fragile and

cumbersome, involving considerable staff time and technical know-how, or vendor costs, to maintain.

Due to lag times in data transfer, there can also be data latency issues, and many organizations

report data hygiene problems, which necessarily require manual intervention.


Missing Actionable View of Each Supporter

“There was no real way for us to see each person’s information in one place, and

this left knowledge gaps. Did someone who applied to work here also follow us on

Twitter? Is a reporter on our press list also someone who has worked with a partner

organization in our space? Is someone on our email list also giving offline donations?”

Cynthia Padera, Senior Advisor, Media Matters for America

Without a single, actionable view of each supporter, an organization lacks the ability to target

content and campaigns in ways that maximize relevance, timeliness, personalization, and the ability

to automate communications based on behavior. The capacity for identifying audience patterns,

such as behavioral trends based on supporter profile, is also limited. For example, the Advocacy

team might have a brief window to rally constituents around a pressing issue, yet they cannot

quickly and efficiently engage the ideal audience due to the heavy lifting required to create a

targeted list based on past behavior.

Inability to Share Supporters

“Before, there wasn’t really a system for sharing the way that we were working

together to cultivate donors, to make sure we weren’t stepping on each other’s

toes. There wasn’t that culture of shared, true transparency in data.”

Stephanie Wecht, Deputy Chief Operating Officer, ACLU

While technology divisions of the past two decades grew out of departmental divisions within

organizations, especially after the early days of the Web, many organizations have since outgrown

the siloed approach to supporter management. We hear again and again that organizations are

eager to do cross-departmental, integrated planning, to share list ownership, and to present a

cohesive face to supporters. However, old technology and data models have become a barrier

to achieving these new ways of working.

Lack of Internal Coordination Shows

“Having to maintain multiple records for the same person is not an ideal situation

and doesn’t give us the visibility or ability to cross-reference interactions. It is a

lot more valuable to know what kinds of relationships we already have with a

supporter versus going in blind and assuming we have none.”

Tammam Dandashi, IT Manager, Islamic Relief USA

Although technology is a symptom of the historical divide between departments, this symptom

can show through to supporters. Over-messaging or inconsistent messaging, for example, can

create supporter confusion and frustration. Worse, communications can neglect to build upon a

supporters’ previous interactions, such as the scenario where Development sends a direct mail

appeal to a major donor who had recently made a sizable online donation, or another in which

an organization made multiple email appeals to a recently-deceased donor, even after the donor’s

family had contacted the organization requesting to be removed from the list.

OMNICHANNEL OPPORTUNITIES3

“Nonprofits have to be able to do at least as well as Dunkin’ Donuts. They’re great at omnichannel marketing. They target you on the app when you’re walking by the store. They email you a coupon in the afternoon after you looked at a text message in the morning. That personalized approach shouldn’t be something only corporations are taking advantage of.”

– Cynthia Padera, Senior Advisor, Media Matters for America


For many nonprofits, the move to a single CRM is about more than the friction of having

data in multiple CRMs. It’s about scaling up their strategy by using technology that allows them to

campaign and communicate regardless of touchpoint or channel — to move beyond multichannel

approaches by using a single CRM that allows them to achieve a personalized, context-specific

supporter experience.

The benefits and opportunities that organizations name among their chief reasons for moving to a

single CRM include:

A Single View, Available Everywhere

“We needed a true, in-real-time, 360-degree view of a donor. From a nuts-

and-bolts, tactical standpoint, it makes sense to have one system that’s easily

accessible — a global, scalable platform.”


With a single, real-time home for all supporter data, organizations gain a holistic view of their

supporters and members, including demographic, interest, and past interaction details. Having this

wealth of information in a single location, with no need to swap files or munge spreadsheets, turns

interesting data points into actionable information, which can then be used across departments to

pursue coordinated outreach across channels.

Just as a complete view of a single supporter is crucial, so is the ability for staff to have

instantaneous, universal access to this data, whether in the main office, at an event or rally, in

the field, or at an affiliate. Provided that the single CRM is designed and configured to maximize

accessibility, all staff who interact with supporter data also benefit from fewer systems to learn.

Operational & Competitive Drivers

“The idea is not just that all the data is in one place, but also that we are building

institutional memory, so that when people leave, we’re not wasting a lot of time.”

Boris Sporer, Drug Policy Alliance

Beyond gaining a holistic view of supporters, some nonprofits were also spurred by operational

drivers, such as scalability, ease of training, and avoiding a single point-of-failure, such as the one

person on staff who knows how to run the necessary reports or who actually understands the

data sync. (Sound familiar?) Other organizations reported that cultural drivers factored into their

decision, such as a desire for greater internal transparency and collaboration, new receptiveness

of leadership, or an increased focus on tracking against metrics.


“What happened in the past was that there were a whole series of cobbled-

together tools and processes to actually run the organization. A lot of those

operational pieces we have started to take over with Salesforce, using our

in-house expertise. We can now build on top of our single CRM to solve other

operational challenges.”

Jacob Lane, VP of IT, National Kidney Foundation

For some organizations, the move to a single CRM is catalyzed by a larger fear of missing out or the

reality of being outpaced by other nonprofits in their issue area.

“The amount of success is contingent on the tools that I’m given, which includes

the CRM platform. Obviously, we can still do things the old way, but if we do, then

we’ll never be as good as the organizations we admire.”


Becoming a Learning Organization

“We had a vision of how we could work together to get the most from our donors

and engage them. Moving onto a shared system was really the first step in that

process. I think some of the most untapped potential in a system like this, in an

organization like ours, is all of that relationship mapping.”

Stephanie Wecht, ACLU

Moving to a single CRM is sometimes part of a grand plan encompassing more than acquisition or

stewardship. Some organizations choose a single CRM in order to lay the groundwork for becoming

a learning organization.

Cohesive data collected in a single model is the foundation upon which nonprofits can begin to

recognize patterns in their supporter populations; identify influencers who need to be cultivated;

map relationships across networks; and recognize audience overlap that will allow the organization

to more effectively market their work. Actionable metrics that are evaluated with regularity, not

to mention more sophisticated pursuits like business intelligence (BI), all require an up-to-date,

easy-to-access-and-manipulate, cohesive view of supporter data.

“We want to collect data to help us understand our supporters and how we can

best reach and motivate them to take action and support our work. Being able to

look at those cross-channel relationships is really important for us.”

Cynthia Padera, Media Matters for America


Moving Beyond the Welcome Series: Supporter Journeys

“This technology undertaking all started with the desire to focus our efforts on

what the customer needed, and the customer is the donor. What does that kind

of constituent need from us? How do we deliver that, and, in return, what does that

earn us? It is really about how we are treating the customer, how we are presenting

information, and how we are building the relationship. Once we thought about that,

the systems that we were using just fell so short. The promise of Salesforce was the

opportunity to actually create some of the programs and processes that we knew

the constituents wanted.”

Debbie Schneiderman, Executive Director of Customer Relationship and Channel Marketing, Wildlife Conservation Society

For the past 15 years, we’ve heard nonprofits talk about personalization, grappling with concepts

like tailored content based on supporter profile and offering an automated welcome series

to carefully orient new supporters to their cause. While these ideas are now considered best

practices, it’s still technically difficult to execute them with multiple data sources and entrenched

online-versus-offline tools and practices.

Meanwhile, the for-profit world has evolved these concepts at warp speed, gathering huge

amounts of consumer data and using it to map each stage in a customer’s journey. For better

or worse, we have all become consumers who are marketed to with target precision by the

big-budget brands which have seemingly endless knowledge of our behaviors and preferences.

The challenge for nonprofits is that your supporters’ expectations have now been deeply shaped

by their experiences with highly-personalized customer journeys, campaigns, and content.

Many nonprofits are talking about their vision for offering supporter or member journeys, from

initial contact through all the stages of deepening a relationship. With a single CRM and the

right associated messaging and data-capture software, these journeys can be fully automated —

creating a mass-scale yet personalized sequence of interactions that reaches a supporter exactly

where they already are, with the right message, at their specific stage of the relationship.

Optimized Customer Experience: Multichannel vs . Omnichannel

“In the corporate world, omnichannel and multichannel are very different things.

However in the nonprofit world, tech providers tend to use them interchangeably.

The difference is that multichannel is about distinct swim lanes of content and

optimizing for each audience, each platform, while omnichannel focuses on the

individual and putting them at the center, optimizing for that person.”



Websites

Email

Social channels

Advertising

Direct Mail

Phone & Chat

ME

SS

AG

ING

& C

ALLS

TO

AC

TIO

N

DEVELOPMENT

COMMUNICATION

ADVOCACY

PROGRAMS

Multichannel Model

ACTIVE SOCIAL

CHANNELS

CHAT & MESSENGERS

IN-PERSON EVENTS

TARGETED ADS

CONTENT EXPLORATION

& SEARCH

MOBILE/SMS

VOICE INTERACTIONS

MEDIUM, GUEST BLOGS

WEBSITE

DIRECT MAIL

PHONE CULTIVATION

EMAIL INBOX

Omnichannel Model

ACTI

VE SOCIAL CHANNELS CHAT & MESSENGERS

IN-P

ERS

ON

EVEN

TS

TARGETED ADS

CO

NTENT EXPLORATION

MO

BIL

E/S

MS

VOICE IN

TERACTIONS PHONE CULTIVATION

DIR

ECT M

AIL

WEBSITE

MEDIUM, GUEST BLOGS

EMA

IL IN

BO

X

option 1

option 2

Multichannel Marketing

Omnichannel Marketing

Campaigns, messages, and calls-to-action are coordinated by channel, using techniques like segmentation and testing to deliver channel-specific experiences.

Omnichannel marketing puts the individual supporter’s journey at the center of the marketing strategy, using techniques like behavioral marketing and automation

to create a personalized, context-specific experience for each supporter.


For years, nonprofits have tried to achieve effective multichannel marketing, creating consistency of

messaging and campaign delivery across all of their touchpoints. The problem with multichannel thinking

as an end-goal is that it represents an “inside out” approach, where the organization’s channels and

its priorities dictate the outreach method. The recent shift by savvy organizations toward omnichannel

thinking offers a more supporter-centered, “outside in” perspective, meaning that the supporter’s

overall experience is prioritized over specific campaign tactics. As much as possible, the supporter is

in the driver’s seat, sometimes dictating directly when and how they want to engage, sometimes being

marketed to based on recent behavior and persona-based audience profiling. The ambitious goal of

omnichannel marketing is to deliver ever more personalized communications that make each supporter

feel understood, intimately connected to, and personally invested in the organization.

“Even Grandma has an expectation about engagement, and it is being set by the

commercial sector. She will not accept my missteps or mistakes. She will wonder,

‘It’s me. Don’t you know? How can you not know me?’”


Overall Technology Freedom

“We used to have multiple, siloed software solutions because we didn’t have a

flexible ecosystem. Now, we have Salesforce and a flexible ecosystem, which

gives us the opportunity to think through, ok, is this incremental cost of this other

old system giving us the value that we need? Can we replicate this work on our

existing infrastructure and build it out using internal expertise that we have developed

in-house? Based on the original promise of what we wanted to do, we’re now in the

position to actually answer: We can do it in house.”

Jacob Lane, National Kidney Foundation

Since the dawn of the digital age, organizations have moved through various stages of maturity

using engagement technology. A common trajectory started in the early 2000’s with the purchase

of made-for-nonprofits, all-in-one software that was supposed to power key “online” functionality

(email, fundraising, advocacy, possibly a website, and online-specific supporter data) that would then

be integrated with their offline CRM. Since that time, we’ve observed organizations struggling to fit their

specific needs and requirements into the all-in-one model, stymied by the limitations of the tools and

inability to tailor or customize.

For many organizations, the choice to move to a single CRM proves to be a critical step in breaking out

of the old “all-in-one,” online-versus-offline model. In addition to choosing a single CRM and creating a

cohesive model for their supporter data, organizations simultaneously gain the opportunity to choose

or build their own specific, single-purpose software (also known as a best-of-breed, or “technology

ecosystem,” model). The idea is that instead of giving up control of their online functionality to all-in-

one tool vendors, organizations create in-house capacity to select, tailor, and manage their own toolset

over the long term. Each specific technology is configured to use the single CRM as its underlying

database — rather than proliferating additional datasets/databases that require custom integrations.

The single CRM serves as the brain of the technology ecosystem, and the nonprofit takes responsibility

for carefully curating the other parts of the body according to its strategy, needs, and goals.


We’ve observed that organizations choosing the overall ecosystem model, including a single CRM,

tend to experience positive disruption as a result of making this shift. The new technological freedom

seems to present an unique opportunity to get clear on aspirational goals and requirements; rethink

staff roles and processes; engage outside vendors in more productive and cost-effective ways; and

align vision and strategy with technology, across the organization.

CMS + CRM

Fundraising

EmailPeer-to-Peer

CMS + CRM

Events

CMS + CRM

Advocacy

CMS + CRM

Grants Management

CMS + CRM

Volunteer Management

CRM

“A L L- I N - O N E ” O N L I N E S Y S T E M S

CMS + CRM

Old Sample Platform Ecosystem Diagram

MARKETING AUTOMATION

DIGITAL ENGAGEMENT

CRM

Email Marketing & Supporter Journeys

Supporter Profiles, Campaign Data Across Channels, Reporting, Analytics, Business Intelligence,

Artificial Intelligence, & More

Fundraising, Advocacy, Peer-to-Peer, Events, & Other Data Capture Forms

“All-in-One” Online Technology Model

“Technology Ecosystem” (Single CRM) Model

THE SINGLE CRM: IS IT A FIT FOR YOUR ORG?4

“After completing a survey of internal people and stakeholders, I realized that we need a centralized database that would unify online and offline. We need all our data in one place. The current crop of tools, which are entirely browser-based and mobile-responsive, didn’t exist when we implemented our previous donor database. In order to survive the upcoming competitive environment, we needed to get modern. Also, we wanted to make the reach further, work better with less, have systems that are more seamless, and allow our colleagues to capitalize on the infrastructure we provide, so they can stand on our shoulders.”

– Boris Sporer, Director of IT & Knowledge Management, Drug Policy Alliance


While dozens of organizations have already set out in search of the holy

grail, many nonprofits, in our experience, aren’t quite ready yet. For some, the value proposition

isn’t there (and may never be). Others have the quest firmly on their horizon, but are first pursuing

urgent, prerequisite priorities, such as strategic planning. The reality that we’ve heard again and

again is that single CRM implementations are big undertakings which represent a new approach

to technology: an ongoing initiative to consolidate data and coordinate internal work, rather than

a “one and done,” discrete project. And conscientious change always requires careful forethought

and planning.

While there’s no precise formula for when an organization is ready for a single CRM, there are

some clear indicators of fitness.

Your organization may be ready for a single CRM if you have:

3 or more substantial siloes of supporter data

A sizable number of supporter records — 10,000 or greater

More than a minor amount of a full-time employee’s time dedicated to manual data migration or sync troubleshooting

Old systems that can’t be easily adapted to meet new strategic opportunities

Special business processes, campaign approaches, or reporting needs

A senior leader who understands the benefits and can be an executive champion

A willingness to collaborate and compromise across departments under a shared strategy — even when it’s difficult

A strong vision for communicating with supporters in deeply personalized

ways, using both behavioral and demographic data

If many or most of the above ring true, a single CRM might be right for you.


However, because the single CRM move requires significant investment of time, money, and energy,

it isn’t the right holy-grail quest for every organization. For example, the scale of an organization’s

engagement efforts, at either extreme, can make the single CRM not worth its while, or too complex

of an undertaking to broach.

“If your organization is really small, then you probably can’t afford too many

databases. But the effort to consolidate might not be worth the staff time. If you’re

not going to go with a single database and just do it with multiple instead, that’s

fine. You just need to understand that it may be resource-heavy to manage

manually.”


For some small orgs, the project cost alone simply isn’t worth the projected gains, whereas other

organizations are so large, with so many datasets, stakeholders, and complex processes, that the

different models just aren’t reconcilable, short of spending several years and several million dollars.

We mentioned above the evolutionary trajectory that many organizations have been on since

the push towards online marketing began about 20 years ago. As we approach 2020, some

organizations are seeking more sophisticated data and tools as a matter of survival, as much as

growth opportunity. When weighing the best route for your organization, we advise starting with

the following questions:

Costs

What are the projected hard and soft costs of this undertaking, including project fees,

technology, vendors, and staff time? Beyond the first launch, how much might this cost us in

subsequent project phases and ongoing, as staff adjust to new ways of working? (Some of

these questions are addressed in the Implementation section, coming up next.)

Savings

How does the cost compare to our current solutions, accounting for technology fees,

ongoing project costs, vendors, and staff time? Measured over the long haul, where

will we see savings?

Timing

Is a single CRM right for us right now? If not, what conditions would make it the right timing?

When would we need to get started to be able launch at that right time?

Opportunity Costs

What is the cost of choosing not to pursue a single CRM? Are there lost opportunities for

increased productivity or revenue with our current data model, technology approach, and

processes? Which route will best position our organization for the audiences we seek to reach

and the relationship value we hope to achieve?

1

2

3

4

IMPLEMENTING THE HOLY GRAIL5

“We’ve succeeded, primarily, because we had the right pre-conditions: namely, organizational buy-in at all levels. This wasn’t just bottom up or top down. All parts of the organization were committed to doing things better and becoming constituent-centric. Probably the most important thing was that there was a vision that everyone was bought into: giving our constituents what they’re asking for, building a movement, scaling up. This wasn’t just a technology change or a numbers game. This project was really about delivering on the mission and the value of the organization.”



How Long Will It Take? How Much Will It Cost?

“It can start years before it actually happens. Making presentations to the finance

team, senior leadership, the CFO, Controller, explaining to them both from a

capabilities perspective and a financial standpoint what a move like this can mean.”

Debbie Schneiderman, Wildlife Conservation Society

As emphasized by each organization we interviewed, the actual length of single CRM projects

is almost impossible to measure, from the spark of an idea in a staff member’s mind until the first

phase of implementation and refinement is complete. (Also as mentioned above, these projects

can involve multiple phases and ongoing efforts to incorporate newly-emerging data needs.)

The pre-phases of building a business case, securing internal buy-in, procuring the necessary

funding, and choosing a vendor can vary tremendously, but they typically follow existing patterns in

how quickly or slowly an organization tends to move on new initiatives, and timing depends greatly

on existing organizational priorities. Some organizations spend a solid year or more in preparatory

activities before even kicking off the implementation project. This is to be expected. Your careful

planning will lead to better outcomes in the end.

“It took us more than a year from the time we pitched to the board until approval

of the budget and then RFP for possible platforms. Even months later, after we

were live and the official cutover date happened, there was another year where

we were still patching things up.”


Depending on complexity of the data model and business processes; the number of data sets

included in the first phase; and availability of staff time to focus on the project, the implementation

itself can easily take between 9 and 18 months from kickoff to cutover. For more complex projects,

we’ve seen Phase 1 span as long as 18-48 months. Some organizations then choose to run a

parallel, side-by-side implementation of their old and new systems for a period of time, in an effort

to build staff trust in the new system. Other orgs only allow for a 4-6 week overlap window, typically

due to the prohibitive costs of running two duplicative software environments. Like moving out of

one house and into a new one, the question is: How long can you float two rents or mortgages?

Costs for these types of projects vary even more widely than timelines, especially when measuring

total cost: staff time and effort to research, choose, and contract a CRM and related software

(or vendor time to complete this task, if outsourced); involvement of stakeholders from multiple

departments; software fees and implementation costs of the solution; untold staff hours from a

core project team; and plenty of time to train and support new internal users.

Hard costs vary tremendously based on the number of systems being consolidated and the

amount and condition of the existing data. The hard costs almost always represent a significant

investment for an organization, and they are often funded by capital budgets, meaning that the

budgeting and approval process can be lengthy. When funded by operating budgets, it’s common

to see organizations spread the costs over several fiscal years. However, the considerable staff

time required to make these projects successful will undoubtedly be an organization’s largest cost.


What Else Do I Need in My Engagement Tech Ecosystem?

“We were fortunate to have a staff advisor with experience in data visualization who

helped us create a roadmap for our network of new tools, including the CRM. He and

I worked together with our Director of Technology to create an enterprise architecture

map. Our map covers all of our marketing tech and also touches some of the other

enterprise initiatives that we have happening around content and legacy systems.”


Although the goal of a single CRM is frequently the catalyst for moving away from old technology

models, organizations tend to tackle multiple, related software migrations either as a single, unified

“phase 1” or in rapid succession. Beyond selecting the right CRM, most nonprofit strategies will also

require the engagement-tech ecosystem to include outreach, interaction, and content platforms to

power their acquisition, cultivation, fundraising, advocacy, and volunteer objectives.

The two most common components of the technology ecosystem, building on top of the single CRM,

are marketing automation software (including email marketing) and digital engagement software

(including forms and other campaign elements for capturing supporter interactions). In addition,

organizations might also choose or build special solutions for capturing volunteers, grantseeker

information, managing ticketing operations, programmatic operations, and other functions.

The following diagram shows how the Wildlife Conservation Society curated its particular technology

ecosystem to offer comprehensive functionality on top of a single CRM.

MARKETING AUTOMATION

POWERED BY POWERED BY

DIGITAL ENGAGEMENT

CRM

• Customer Journeys• Segmentation• Bulk Email• Personalization

• Analytics • Reporting

• Contacts • Campaigns

• Fundraising• Advocacy• Events• Peer to Peer

POWERED BYTICKETING & MEMBERSHIP

MANAGEMENT

POWERED BY

Supporter-Engagement Technology Ecosystem


Why a Phased Approach?

“The way we framed our approach is this: Phase 1 was really focused on re-

setting up all the core functionality that we previously had, not adding anything

new right away. We set up a robust training program to get all of our users trained

up before we made the switch so they would be able to get started in the new

system on day one. Phase 2 is all about adding on the new functionality and

datasets in a prioritized fashion, in context with the rest of our work. With so many

users within the organization, the phased approach and training program has

helped tremendously with user adoption.”


While most organizations aspire to a comprehensive single-CRM implementation encompassing

all of their supporter data, the reality is that datasets, like engagement strategies, are living things.

Even organizations with the best-laid plans have found themselves uncovering new requirements or

new siloes of critical data that they hadn’t factored in — just days from their big launch. Sometimes,

previously-uninvolved departments of the organization catch wind of the project and seek to be

included. Or a change in leadership mid-implementation means a long-term change in the scope

of the initiative.

Frequently, the initial undertaking is just too large to cover all types of supporter data. A number

of organizations seek to reconcile online and offline donor data first, with a careful eye towards

prioritizing which datasets come next. We believe that pursuing a phased approach is almost

universally the right way to tackle a large single-CRM implementation, allowing for an achievable

first phase, some initial success with internal users, and a proof-of-concept for both the new

technology and any new ways of working.

What’s the Best Order of Operations?

“The preparatory phase takes a long time. Getting people on board, getting

people to sign off on what it will look like — all that takes time. You need to make

sure people understand that this is a long-term project that you need to get right.

Milestones and a timeline are absolutely fundamental.”


The key to a successful order of operations is creating a framework matched to your organization’s

capabilities and its culture. For instance, some nonprofits perform the bulk of their requirements

gathering in-house at the very beginning of the project, as an exercise in consensus-building —

meaning that their downstream discovery activities tend to be slim and speedy. Other organizations

work with a vendor to build an up-front “proof of concept,” to help with both executive support and

user adoption, followed by a project to fine-tune their initial prototype. Your order of operations,

should you choose to accept this mission, will need to account for what’s already known and

what’s undiscovered; how much you’re trying to tackle at once; and who needs to be brought

along in the process.


Though each organization charts its own course in the quest for the holy grail, most organizations

pursue some version of the following progression:

Conceptual buy-in with decision-makers

Securing budget

Initial requirements & business process assessment

RFP creation

Software and vendor selection

Project staffing

Discovery & consensus-building

CRM implementation (often paired with related software implementations)

Training & user adoption

Testing & launch

Maintenance, optimization, and ongoing support

Subsequent phases

“We went through a discovery process with the goal of budget right-sizing the

single-CRM project. After discovery, we then pursued the standard phases of

requirements, validation, development, and testing. What we’ve actually done

since then is to implement a completely agile approach to all of the project

planning — not just the development part, but making sure that all vendors

and all parts of the project are coordinated in a very careful way.”


LESSONS LEARNED ON THE GROUND6

“There will be bumps in the road. We decided early on that we would succeed by making sure that there’s no person left behind. This was a project where the different business teams came together and agreed that the culture was going to be one where we were going to succeed together. If anyone fell down or made a mistake, it was going to be a shared problem. We would work to solve it together and focus on, how do we get everyone back on board and succeeding?”



Spend Time Making the Case

“To sell this idea, I used a top-down model. I had to convince the management

team, who understood at a theoretical level that, in order to survive long-term,

we had to move rapidly out of the siloed data versions towards a single database

of record. But buy-in is a process. It is dynamic. It was an enormous sell to our

Development team, who was being asked to give up Raiser’s Edge. It was a

completely unrelated sell to other staff, telling them they would have to start

weaning themselves off of spreadsheets and paper lists in order to move online.”


How a champion initially sells a single-CRM project (or really any high-profile project) directly

affects how the ultimate solution will be perceived, funded, incorporated, and adopted. This

means doing the research and taking the time to build a strong business case that speaks to

each stakeholder group’s priorities, even beyond direct decision-makers. It will likely require

you to really understand the pain points and challenges from each group’s perspective, and

also to both teach and demonstrate the opportunities for supporter-centric marketing practices.

“One thing that has been really helpful is identifying the pain points people are

experiencing with their tools. At a previous organization where I worked, I had

to demonstrate what we were missing a little bit. This can be very basic: In that

case, I made a presentation that showed what the emails and forms from our

all-in-one marketing tools looked like when read on a phone, versus what they

would look like on a new tool that we could plug into Salesforce as our central

CRM. I showed that to the organization’s VP with some other example campaigns

that could be beautifully designed and have lots of functionality without a

developer’s time. He was blown away and asked, why don’t we do this now?”


If large-scale buy-in seems like an uphill battle, one creative solution is to first pursue a similar,

smaller-scale project that can build trust among stakeholders and reconcile business needs,

particularly elements that will lay the foundation for a longer-term CRM effort. A bite-sized project

such as partial data consolidation, a smaller software effort, or the aforementioned single-CRM

prototype can all serve as an introduction to embracing change. The ACLU used this approach

several years ago by tackling an affiliate-fundraising consolidation project, paving the way for the

single CRM implementation later on.

“We built enough trust through that effort that our affiliates now know that we will

engage them when they need to be engaged in decision-making, and that we

will keep them informed along the way in future projects.”



Build a Core Team With In-House Expertise

“Seeing other organizations implement Salesforce and go through that transition,

we knew it was key to have someone in-house at National Kidney Foundation that

knows Salesforce, but who also knows the organization. We needed someone who

knew the ins and outs, the nuances and the quirks of how we work. Having this

knowledge in-house really lends itself to a more successful rollout.”

Nico Marino, Salesforce Director, National Kidney Foundation

While most organizations outsource at least some aspects of a single-CRM implementation, even the

best vendor will only be as effective as the core in-house team that directs the project. Depending

on the scale of the initiative, an organization needs several types and levels of expertise on its core

team (sometimes combined into a team of just 1-2 people): an executive sponsor and champion; a

strong strategic lead; day-to-day project management capabilities; and deep technical understanding

of the CRM platform. While a single person is not needed for each expertise area, your core team

must include each of these functions — even if you bring on new staff, knowledgeable former staff, or

other contractors to fill these roles.

“One role you must have is an internal evangelist—a really focused person who can

help drive the process. That person needs to be fairly data savvy. They don’t have

to be a data scientist or admin, but they need to know the data, plus how things

work across the organization.”


After a core team has been identified, the distinct roles and responsibilities of each person need to

be clearly defined. Each person’s regular responsibilities must also be reassessed for the duration

of the implementation project, to be sure that substantial time has been allowed to focus on this

effort. Depending upon the initiative’s scale and speed, core project team members can easily spend

between 20-100% of their regular capacity just on the CRM rollout.

Core project team members can easily spend between 20-100% of their regular capacity just on the CRM rollout.

200+100020% 100%


Outsource Smartly

“Our consultants put up the bumpers in the bowling alley and really kept us

in the lane just enough that we could build something that teased out the

potential, without taking on too much too soon — really, without everything

just being a huge risk.”


None of the organizations interviewed for this white paper tackled their single CRM rollout without

hiring at least one consultant. (Notably, we have never seen an organization attempt to undertake

a single CRM rollout fully in-house). Most hired two or more vendors, either to provide additional

expertise at different stages of the project or to work together as a joint implementation team.

Occasionally, organizations hire early-stage consultants to help them develop the business case

for change. More commonly, organizations bring on a firm to assist with requirements definition,

which sometimes also includes running an RFP process to choose the CRM technology and an

implementation vendor. While outside help can be vital with eliciting hidden requirements and

getting them on paper, we’ve observed far too often that firms offering these services merely adapt

a pre-filled spreadsheet of common requirements, failing to capture an organization’s unique needs.

If you do choose to outsource this work, be sure that your chosen vendor is starting with a clean

slate that will allow them to carefully suss out and document your business needs. Ask to see other

requirements they’ve written to determine whether each engagement is actually custom.

“It’s crucial that each consultant involved in the process truly understands

the end user’s needs—even latent needs. There needs to be a true discovery

process and true design thinking.”


When it comes to the actual implementation of the CRM and related ecosystem software,

nonprofits almost universally choose to outsource the configuration of the system as well as

data migration. A well-chosen implementation vendor can become a guide to the system; a

sounding board during the process; and an impartial participant who helps to navigate challenging

organizational dynamics. The right implementation vendor also typically has an eye for more

than technology, attuning to possible process and workflow changes; training users to promote

long-term system adoption; and preparing the way for ongoing customer support. However, the

Most organizations hired two or more vendors, either to provide additional expertise at different stages of the project or to work together as a joint implementation team.


lynchpin of smart, effective outsourcing is actually your internal project leader and core team, as they

represent the needs of the organization; identify crucial stakeholders and keep them informed; and

coordinate the efforts of the vendor(s) into a single, unified initiative.

“We had three main vendors for this initiative, and we worked with them all in different

ways. It’s critical at the very beginning to make sure that everyone knows their

roles and responsibilities, who their key internal contacts are at the organization,

what the core team’s skill set is, and what the other vendors are responsible for. It’s

also incredibly important to be hyper respectful of people’s time. The whole CRM

migration process is on top of staff members’ regular jobs, so it’s crucial to identify

which vendors and staff need to be in each meeting and how much time should be

allocated. That sets a good tone for the team and with vendors.”


Streamline Business Processes & Manage Change Proactively

“Nobody knows your organization and your processes like you, so don’t expect

that there’s a product or consultant out there or a third party that’s going to come

and solve all your problems. You need to know what’s important to you, what

compromises you are willing to make, and be able to make those decisions.”

Tammam Dandashi, Islamic Relief USA

Alas, the success of the single-CRM dream (and really any technology project, ever) hinges on the

willingness and the ability of humans — your staff — to change how they work. And as with any

behavior change, it’s most likely to be successful when tackled gradually, with time to integrate each

of the proverbial “baby steps” before the next wave of change arrives.

We recommend that organizations proactively seize the opportunity to streamline as many business

processes as possible – ideally before a single-CRM implementation even begins. This can reduce

the complexity of the implementation and pave the way for other changes down the road.

“One way that we prepped ourselves in advance of the project was decoupling

a bunch of our existing systems at a strategic level. Both for this project and for a

variety of other reasons, we centralized many of our business processes prior to

doing the single-CRM implementation.”

Jacob Lane, National Kidney Foundation

One of the main purposes of both stakeholder engagement and requirements gathering is to prepare

the organization for the ways that their work might change. A well-designed process seeks in the

early stages to gather staff’s ideas for how the new technology could make their lives easier as well

as actually beginning the process of change management – conscientiously plotting the transition of

responsibilities and workflows.


“We really started from change management. We started to rethink how we

approached our campaign management and fundraising efforts to think about the

possible, and then to think about how that would change the outcome.”


Because single-CRM implementations can be lengthy projects, it’s crucial to have a solid plan for

orienting stakeholders to the upcoming changes well before launch. Some organizations adopt a

gradual, “show and tell” approach to training, giving system previews to key stakeholders throughout

the process, which allows time for system users to adjust their mental models well before launch.

Other organizations undertake a herculean pre-launch training effort designed to give users “just in

time” exposure to the system with the goal of mapping old business processes directly to their new

counterparts – and then having staff begin to execute the new processes in the live systems right away.

Involve Stakeholders in Requirements Definition

“My experience: The definition of success was vastly different depending on the

stakeholder. What could have been discussed and reconciled in a one-day meeting

before our project started took the entire course of the project to figure out. And

sometimes people who are against the project in the first place will look for failures.

The best answer? Deliverables. What are the stakeholders’ needs? What are their

requirements? If it is a report, then whatever they printed out on Friday morning

with the old system, they better get that same thing again on Monday morning after

the cutover happens. Replicating everyday deliverables that staff need have to be

priority number one. If you focus on delivering and even improving outcomes, the

mechanism and machinery of the specific software is of no importance.”


A universal critical success factor is engaging the right stakeholders at key intervals throughout the

process. While the specific departments you engage may vary greatly depending on your structure

and workflows, what won’t vary is the need to map a cross-departmental view of requirements;

build and sustain consensus about the CRM solution; and help stakeholders to feel personally

invested in the outcome of the process.

A universal critical success factor is engaging the right stakeholders at key intervals throughout the process.


“Our primary stakeholders were our fund development department, marketing

department, which handles a lot of our online donations and our online presences,

and our finance and revenue department, which processes all these donations.

Even our CEO is on board with this. You’ve got to gather requirements—the real

requirements—so you have to ask probing questions and talk to all the people who

will be affected by this. Identify your priorities—things you can’t survive without, and

make sure you do those right. Ultimately, we ask the other departments to tell us

their needs, challenges, and aspirations, and then we propose solutions.”

Tammam Dandashi, Islamic Relief USA

In addition to having diverse representation from across the user base, the stakeholder engagement

process works best when it’s used to cultivate champions within other departments. The early

stakeholder interview stage should have both a descriptive component, seeking to document core

business requirements and uncover hidden challenges, and a prescriptive or aspirational component,

identifying what the ideal future state could look like. The best interviews are conversations that

get stakeholders excited about upcoming changes that they might not even be anticipating yet.

The best stakeholder processes seek to sustain that excitement and level of buy-in throughout the

implementation phase.

One theme articulated by organizations repeatedly is that it helps to establish common expectations

and terminology up front. For example, when staff have disparate levels of comfort with and

knowledge of technology, or when stakeholders have been burned by previous projects, it’s critical to

make sure that they understand what will be delivered and what is being asked of them. If they have

already contributed to the requirements in the project’s early stage and know exactly what’s being

delivered and when, stakeholders become invested in the single CRM’s success, rather than the

technology representing yet another new thing they’re being forced to incorporate into their work.

Build In a Transition Period

“Consultants will tell you, ‘You’ve got to do a hard cutover. You need to get

everything prepared.’ But in reality, you will never get away with just flipping the

switch one day, because of possible challenges related to adoption and people’s

comfort level. We kept the second database for viewing for six months, just so

people could gain confidence in the new system first.”


In an ideal world, the move from one system to another would be so well-planned and smooth that

staff could stop using the old system one day and pick up with the new system the following morning.

While it’s easy to become attached to that idea, organizations almost always need to plot a more

gradual transition.


Instead of strict cutover dates, your plan should account for a defined but flexible period of system

overlap, even once the new CRM is officially live as the “database of record.” Staff need to know

that they can reference the old system as they gain confidence with the new data and protocols.

Some organizations even reported keeping a critical sub-set of their old databases alive for a full

calendar year, to provide for an entire fundraising-cycle’s worth of overlap. Other organizations

were only able to secure minimal overlap, largely due to expiring software contracts and the

budget pressures of redundant systems. However, no organization reported allowing fewer than

4-6 weeks of parallel systems after the new CRM had been launched, and many organizations

retained their old databases and systems for several months.

Closing Thoughts

While human psychology isn’t changing quickly, the expectations of

nonprofit supporters are. In the past several years, nonprofit executives and staff have begun

to see the writing on the wall — even if the practical implications of these new supporter-

engagement trends remain murky. The rapid proliferation of new channels, the ubiquity of all our

communications technology, and the changing political and media landscape have accelerated

even in the past year, prodding nonprofits to ask questions like, “how can we offer supporters

a personalized route through our content?”, “how can I be prepared to take donations through

wallet payments and voice-activated commerce?”, and “how do we tap the network potential of our

Resistance Donors in order to build sustainable support for our cause?”

At the same time, we see the nonprofit software market finally beginning to catch up with some

of the more sophisticated trends of the for-profit world, which means that organizations finally

have access to the tools necessary to offer these cohesive, omnichannel member and supporter

experiences. While the complexity of single CRM initiatives may still make them a holy-grail pursuit,

the technology itself is no longer difficult to come by. As consultants, it’s gratifying for us to watch

the social sector carefully curating new technology ecosystems to engage supporters on their own

terms, in digital-first ways, across online, offline, and in-person channels.

We welcome the opportunity to help your organization pursue your very own holy grail.

No organization reported allowing fewer than 4-6 weeks of parallel systems after the new CRM had been launched


AcknowledgmentsMany thanks to the following organizations for their time, wisdom, & generosity:

Individual thanks go to Miranda Carter, Tammam Dandashi, Jacob Lane, Nico Marino, John Mix,

Cynthia Padera, Jonathan Palmer, Debbie Schneiderman, Boris Sporer, and Stephanie Wecht. We

are also grateful to roundCorner (makers of NGO Connect and foundationConnect), Human Rights

Watch, Scott Williamson, Jennifer King, Emma Zolbrod, Mary Getz, and Emily Goodstein for their

perspectives, special permission, and creative contributions to this white paper.

About the Authors

Alice Hendricks

Alice is CEO and co-founder of Jackson River. Alice has dedicated

her 20-year career working with nonprofit organizations to helping

them find creative, people-oriented solutions to complex strategy and

technology problems. Alice looks forward to hearing about your complex

needs and goals. Reach her at [email protected].

Misty McLaughlin

Misty is Vice President of Consulting at Jackson River. Misty has

spent 15+ years helping nonprofits to build their capacity with all

things digital. Equal parts nonprofit coach, content strategist, and

digital-first marketing expert, she midwives organizations through

critical times of change. Misty would love to hear from you at

[email protected].

https://www.jacksonriver.com/about/team/alicehendricksjacksonrivercom?ms=whitepaper

mailto:[email protected]

https://www.jacksonriver.com/misty?ms=whitepaper

mailto:[email protected]


About Jackson River

Jackson River is a ten-year-old, 30-person strategy and technology firm, founded by three

veterans of the nonprofit technology sector. Our expertise lies in helping nonprofits and NGOs

to select and implement revitalized technology to power more effective member and supporter

experiences. With our consulting division, we help organizations evolve their people, processes,

and technologies as well as the ways that they think and work, in order to become digital-first

organizations. Because we believe that nonprofits deserve access to corporate-scale software (not

just the all-in-one tools that have been designed for nonprofits), we have a technology division that

adapts powerful software from the for-profit sector, specifically for nonprofit goals and practices.

Learn more at JacksonRiver.com.

About Springboard

Jackson River created Springboard, the only online fundraising, advocacy, events, and peer-to-peer

platform with native integration to Salesforce. Springboard is the most powerful, flexible digital-

engagement solution for the Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud, working hand-in-hand with the Nonprofit

Success Pack, Marketing Cloud, Pardot, NGO Connect, and other Salesforce apps for nonprofits.

Our vision for Springboard is to bring sophisticated digital-engagement technology to the nonprofit

sector, giving organizations access to the latest online-marketing techniques, adapted for their

supporters’ needs. Our philosophy is to provide an extensible, customizable platform, so that our

clients do not need to wait to employ the newest advances in supporter engagement.

That’s why our product development cycle happens in close collaboration with our nonprofit

clients — to combine their great new ideas with our expertise in emerging behavioral marketing

concepts, leveraging the full power of Salesforce. We’re proud that Springboard powers cohesive,

omnichannel supporter experiences, allowing nonprofits to engage supporters on their own terms,

in digital-first ways, across all their channels.

Learn more at GoSpringboard.com.

https://www.jacksonriver.com/?ms=whitepaper

https://www.gospringboard.com?ms=whitepaper

IN SEARCH HOLY GRAIL - causecraftconsulting.com

Documents

Transcript of IN SEARCH HOLY GRAIL - causecraftconsulting.com