How to get the most from your CRM

A new management system is a huge investment. Suzanne Lewis explains how to make it work for you, and your donors.

CRM systems can be a big investment for charities, not just in terms of money, but in time and effort to implement. It’s essential then that this shiny new system delivers not only for you, but also for your donors, your beneficiaries and your future needs.

CRMs can come with all sorts of fabulous features, but this means it can be easy for the huge array of possibilities to cloud the decisionmaking process for what is actually required. As a result, it’s not unusual for charities to invest in a system and set it up for what they think they want from it, rather than for what they, and their supporters, really need. This can lead to disappointment all round if it’s not providing both a great supporter experience, which will drive the best results, and the richest insight for managing activity and informing strategy going forward.

However, there are some key areas that, if considered at the outset, can make all the difference in getting the best from your CRM.

First steps for making a sound decision

It sounds obvious, but if you’re changing CRMs a good place to start is to think about what is good about your current system, and what it lacks. Features used all the time are often so intrinsic to day-to-day activity that we can forget to brief them in. Going back to basics will help ensure you don’t lose something important en route. And don’t assume that what you do currently will be possible going forward – you’ll need to check this too.

Second, when you are going through the spec for a new CRM, it’s essential to involve the day-to-day users in the decision-making process. They know the difference between the nice-to-haves and the essentials they need in both functionality and training.

Ask yourself: What is the CRM there to do? Is it simply a repository that you’re going to store all your data in? In which case, being able to keep that data accurate and up to date will be key. But if you want it to provide insight into what’s happened in the past, you will need it to be able to provide you with a clear picture of this, and to create reports that you can learn from.

And then of course, what do you need it to do to provide your supporters with an experience that makes them want to stay long term? Part of this is about ensuring your CRM will interact with any other databases you hold, bringing it all into a single supporter view, in near real-time, and readily accessible for segmentation and insight. This is also where the balancing act comes in – your CRM needs to function for you, but it also has to function for them.

Answering supporters’ needs

So, what do your supporters want? In a nutshell, it’s three key things: to be heard, valued, and empowered. When setting up a CRM for the best future success you’ll need to balance the organisational requirements and those of your donors in a cost effective way.

Heard – communicating relevantly.

People want to know that they have done good – to hear how a charity has spent their donations and what it’s achieved. They also want to feel acknowledged, through communications that are relevant not only to their support, but also to what part of your work they are most interested in and their stage of the supporter journey.

This requires your CRM to go further than selecting supporters on just their basic personal details. Can you send them relevant and personalised communications that share the impact they are having by supporting? Or do you need to know what proposition prompted them to engage with your charity, and what appeals they have subsequently responded to? Then setting up your CRM to track the various communications, appeals and programmes of work you have with supporters over time is essential.

There’s always nice-to-have data. But what’s the point, if you are rarely going to use it? Under General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) you also need good reason for collecting personal data. So, keeping to the useful rather than the vanity items is doubly important. Focus first on what information is truly essential to enable you to make supporters feel heard – and to meet legal requirements – and prioritise this. Ask yourself: What is useful? What will enable you to make the supporter relationship stronger and their experience better? Then, set rules for the information you want to collect.

Valued – getting the details right.

People tend not to stick around unless they feel valued. The most obvious way to make them feel valued is by getting their name and address right. Data capture forms really help here but supporters can often input their own details slightly differently – lower-case rather than upper-case for example, or include a house name that’s not recognised by Royal Mail. There are so many variations that can result in duplicates and bad data that fails.

Consistency over data capture is vital, and to get this, you will need to set standardisation rules for what you are willing to accept. Your CRM should also recognise addresses that are not recognised by Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File (PAF), gone-aways, and deceased records, and flag all of these up so you can deal with them. Your CRM won’t track or flag any of these records automatically – you need to set the rules, which means agreeing on things such as your definition of a lapsed donor, whether you accept things such as vanity postal addresses, and how you are going to respond when records are flagged.

PAF and bereavement files that inform you when someone on your database has passed away are external products that you will need to pay for and with which your CRM will have to interact – but they are essential for keeping your all supporter files up to date.

Flagging lapsed donors is important. The difficult part is defining a lapsed donor. Whatever your organisation definition is, ensure it is understood by anyone who is interacting with the data. And remember under GDPR, it’s important to have clarity over how long you hold data for – it should only be held for as long as you really need it, but it’s up to you to decide how long this is.

A key tip is to keep a record of everything you decide when going through this process, as well as the reasoning behind these decisions. Because whatever your definitions are to start with, further down the line, someone else could well be using that data who might not understand what that definition was in the first place. Training for those using the system both now and into the future is also essential for ensuring your organisation continues to get the greatest possible value from it.

Empowered – putting control in supporters’ hands.

Sometimes supporter details or preferences change, and some will want to update them themselves. From time to time too, supporters may also want to feed back to you with thoughts and comments. And all of this through the channel of their choice.

Providing these opportunities is an important way of ensuring supporters feel heard and valued, but it’s also vital information that you’ll want to track and keep records of to inform your communications going forwards. So, when setting up your CRM, you will need to consider how you are going to empower supporters to do this, and how you will capture and manage the information to ensure that supporter view remains up to date.

Making it work for you – and them

A great CRM is one that answers your charity’s needs, as well as those of your supporters. Achieving this will centre around what you do during the decisionmaking and setting-up processes. Keep putting yourself in the position of your donors – what do they expect you to know about them? How do they want to be treated, and how can you make sure that happens? It is this information that will enable you to provide a great experience that encourages long-term support and brings in that all-important regular and sustainable income.

Technology can help as long as you use it to your best advantage, which means understanding what you want to achieve and always ensuring your data is accurate and relevant. Above all, keep your supporters’ needs as well as your own central if you want your investment to count.

Suzanne Lewis is founder and managing director of Arc Data

This article was first published in May 2023 issue Fundraising magazine and later on CivilSociety.co.uk 09.05.23