Guide to choosing a CRM system

A CRM project preparation checklist:

Identify your goals

The first step in any CRM implementation project should be to outline your main objectives. This is your ’why’ and it will provide your focus throughout the whole process.

As well as helping guide set key requirements in your choice of vendor and system, clear goal-setting will help you when it comes to articulating to the board or your organisation’s directors why the investment in a CRM system is needed, and how the current set-up is hampering your efforts. Once you know what you want to achieve, it’s easier to see whether the system you’re assessing will deliver a return on investment.

The overarching questions at this stage should be:

• What are the biggest problems we face with our fundraising?
• What specific fundraising goal do we want to meet (and what’s stopping us)?
• What are our most inefficient processes and what do we want to improve?

Case study:

In this CRM case study from the Woodland Trust, the charity talk about how they needed to prevent over-communicating with its members and supporters, with data fragmented across a number of different systems.

By bringing in the CARENG CRM system, they aimed to unify this data into one view, so the charity could target its communications with the ultimate goal of engaging each supporter to donate towards the local causes they care about, instead of sending out mass communications.

Select your project team

Choosing the right team to lead your CRM implementation project from the outset is really important. This will ensure that you have people on board that can represent the strategic priorities of the organisation, preventing you from getting pulled in multiple directions and keeping you focused on your goals.

Ask yourself:

• Who should be accountable with the board and communicating with the supplier?
• Who needs to be involved in the purchasing decision?
• Who will need day to day access to the system?
• Do we have someone to represent the priorities of each team in the organisation?
• Who has the skills to understand data, or who is likely to be a data ’champion’?

From this, you will establish the key people who need to be involved. It’s a good idea to appoint a project manager and a team of ’subject matter experts’ from each department that needs to be represented.

Data skills may need to be outsourced, but it’s important to have a team who at least understand the value of what data can do for your charity.

Case study:

Prior to having a centralised system, horse charity Greatwood had a number of data silos, with each team working independently. After bringing onboard Harlequin CRM they were able to work more collaboratively by bringing together teams including fundraising and service delivery, leading to more effective fundraising.

Internally, they were able to create tailored views to facilitate how different teams work, so that teams could have access to only the modules and records they needed.

Get everyone on board

Bringing a new CRM system into your organisation can be a big change, which is why communicating your plans to the rest of the organisation and helping to nurture a positive ’culture’ around digital is just as crucial as having a core project team to handle the logistics.

Strong communication with the tech’s intended users is always the backbone of any successful new project, and means they’ll be more likely to want to learn and use the new system once it’s up and running, so it’s less likely to be left unused.

Involve as many of the end users as possible early on and ensure they feel their needs are heard, communicate regular updates as things progress, and make sure training is a priority for anyone who needs it - a successful CRM project needs to take into account all types of users, not just the most tech-savvy.

Case study:

When housing charity Framework brought onboard Access’s ThankQ CRM the vendor made sure they invested in training all members of the team to use the system, including volunteers, involving them from the outset rather than expecting a few individuals to pass on the knowledge.

While the ’top-down’ approach works in some instances, where select users show others how to navigate the system, sometimes different teams need specific training the get the most out of a new system.

Gather requirements

Putting together a full list of requirements can be daunting, but this checklist will give you an idea of where to start in identifying the exact features and functionality you’ll need:

• Do you need your solution to be cloud-based or on-premises?
• Will you need to access the system from remote desktops or mobile devices?
• How many users will there be? Will this change over time?
• Can you use an out-of-the-box solution specific to the non-profit sector, or need to build something completely bespoke for your needs?
• If the system isn’t built from scratch for your organisation, how configurable will the system be, and is there be the ability to create new functionality when required?
• Will the system be able to incorporate the data fields you need, and have them interact how you need them to?
• Can the system integrate with other software your charity uses, such as finance and email?
• Will the system be able to incorporate the data sets you want to analyse?
• Are there features for things such as batch data entry and data export?
• Does the system have the features we need for segmenting, scheduling and automating communications?

There are also some charity-specific questions to ask such as:

• Will you have the ability to process direct debits?
• Is there integration with online giving via your website and social media?
• Do you need to automate Gift Aid?
• Do you need to track and manage legacy giving?
• Do you need volunteer management functionality?
• What about event management?

Case study:

Education charity Camfed chose CRM platform Salesforce for Nonprofits because the system is highly customisable and they knew would be able to develop it over time as their needs evolved.

They ended up moving away from their third-party finance system integrated with Salesforce, to a system built on the Salesforce platform itself which provides a single view of transactional data on its programmes.

Case study:

Having never had a CRM system before, Birmingham Royal Ballet knew they didn’t want anything overly complex features that would end up sitting largely unused. They went with Advantage NFP Fundraiser for its user-friendliness and customer support.

Picking the right vendor: what to ask

The right features, while important, won’t secure the success of any CRM project alone. A CRM system is a partnership between two organisations - you need to be confident that the vendor you choose has a good understanding of your organisation, your objectives and how you work, both during implementation and after the new system is up and running.

• Look for vendors with charity sector experience
• Research the market and speak to as many other similar organisations as possible – any good vendor will be able to put you in touch with their customers, who will be able to vouch for their track record
• Put together an ROI (return on investment) proposal with help from the vendor
• Ask vendors about the training and ongoing support they offer, establish what the appropriate level of support would be, and check whether this is part of the cost
• Ensure the vendor helps you identify the lifetime costs of the product, including any maintenance, upgrades or functionality you might want to add later
• Your CRM system is a long-term investment: check that there will be regular updates from the vendor and that the software will be continued over time
• Ask for an implementation timeline or roadmap and ensure it fits with your schedule
• Ask for a demo or trial run, and find out what user testing the vendor undertakes

Case study:

Breast Cancer Care chose Blackbaud CRM in part because they were impressed by the vendor’s success stories of other charities with similar user needs and objectives.

Next steps and further resources

So your charity is ready to take the plunge with a CRM system to boost its fundraising – here is some recommended reading for your next steps:

• Find out more on using CRM data to target donors, with tips on data segmentation and analysis
  
  
• This free eBook from charity software partner Blackbaud breaks down the process of choosing and implementing a CRM into easy steps, so charities can be confident they have ticked all the right boxes on their CRM journey
  
  
• Charity Digital’s eBook in partnership with Salesforce.org takes a look at the CRM trends behind charities’ purchase decisions in 2020. You can also take a look at the accompanying infographic
  
  
• Charity Digital’s guide to some of the top CRM systems for charities is helpful for narrowing down your choice of vendor
  
  
• We also recommend ’Five reasons why charity CRM projects fail’ and ’From 0 to Salesforce: 4 lessons from implementing the CRM platform’