CRMs for the nonprofit sector: choose yours

All associations, regardless of their size, face common problems : the sometimes conflicting management of employees and volunteers; raising awareness among new donors and maintaining links with existing donors; creating communication campaigns and fundraising.

Although the list may seem long, often all it takes is a little creativity to address these problems in innovative ways.

For example, smaller charities often organize themselves in their own way to evolve and adapt to the challenges they face. They may record donor contact information in Outlook, track donations in Excel, or launch email campaigns in MailChimp. But if these apps aren’t integrated with each other, data management becomes a nightmare.

And as the organization grows, these overly manual processes become difficult to maintain. Volunteers who leave often take with them the knowledge and skills needed to understand the systems in place, and newcomers sometimes struggle to adapt and locate the information they need.

For all these reasons, and whatever the size of your association, it is never too early to implement a customer relationship management (CRM) system.

What can a CRM do for an association?

The good news is that there are country email list CRMs for every budget and skill set. You don’t have to be a Fortune 500 company to benefit from a system that can bring together your contact information, donation details, marketing data, and fundraising and management reports into one place. This article looks at the benefits and features of the best CRM software based on budgets and needs.

A CRM system can help you in particular to:

Save time

Have you ever tried to calculate how much time it takes to train a new recruit or volunteer? To prepare and launch an email campaign? To determine and segment a demographic group to target in order to communicate more effectively?

CRM software can make all of these tasks easier for you. Donors and volunteers can enter their contact information directly into an online form, and that data is then automatically added to your database and segmented by defined demographic groups to send the right message to the right recipient.

Automating your email marketing is a great way to simplify the management of your campaigns. Want to let your volunteers know about an upcoming training? No problem. Inviting your major donors to a special event? It’s as good as done. No more manual searches through long lists of names that not only take ages, but are also imperfect and risk missing out on key contributors.

Improve your relationships with your donors (and attract new ones)

Donors always get tired eventually. When an association regularly asks for their contribution from the same person, it risks reducing the retention rate and even discouraging it permanently. Managing contributors is an art and consists in particular of making your message prevail among all the others.

With a proper CRM system, you can personalize your communications based on the target audience. It is a way to segment your donors in order to create specific campaigns, tailored to an audience defined by specific characteristics such as previous donations, age, geographic area, etc.

This lets you align your message with a group’s priorities, instead of constantly bombarding your entire database with emails that don’t apply to them. Whether a recipient has been donating for years or is just starting to get interested in your cause, you have access to the statistics you need to build a strong relationship.

Simplify your daily operations

To become a leader in the nonprofit the best free email marketing tools for beginners sector, you  have to take on a variety of roles. CRM software can automate many tasks that are too manual, like creating email campaigns or transferring data from one app to another.

A suitable CRM offers the necessary features to simplify work methodologies and relationships between all your teams. For example, you can use it to customize email templates to turn them into electronic newsletters, landing pages or other communication tools.

And what’s more, a CRM can integrate with all your other productivity tools, like Zoom, Calendly, DocuSign, Quickbooks, or Microsoft Office 365 or Google Workspace. That way, your CRM app communicates with the rest of your systems, and you can, for example, launch a Zoom call or request a document signature directly from your interface.

How to choose a CRM suited to the non-profit sector?

Most nonprofits are often forced to be guided by price. But how do you find a CRM that offers the features you want without charging you for a lot of unnecessary bells and whistles?

There is no number one CRM, the important thing is to find a CRM that suits you . Take the time to think about your daily tasks: event planning, volunteer management, communication and fundraising activities, awareness campaigns, online donation and social media management… Do you really think you can find a single CRM that does it all?

And you’re right! Let’s start by listing what you’re looking for (applicable to all associations, regardless of their size or the cause they defend):

Personalization features — your CRM should think like you

These types of features help you optimize your communication efforts by always sending the right message, to the right audience, at the right time. You can also use them to differentiate your association with personalized campaigns and landing pages, thanks to ready-to-use yet easy-to-edit templates.

Marketing automation — to simplify your campaigns and maximize results

Marketing automation is essential to staying connected with donors, volunteers, and the general public. It’s not just about sending automated responses via email and social media, but rather preparing a communication flow to engage all your stakeholders. And it’s also a way to identify the most effective initiatives, eliminate the ones that are not serving any purpose, and improve your processes to meet (or exceed!) your goals.

Centralized data management — to better understand your patrons

Simplify your daily work by bringing together in a single interface all the data concerning your donors, volunteers, sponsors, grants, etc. Centralized data management allows you to have an overview of the entirety of each relationship. You can then get back in touch, through new campaigns or by directly contacting a volunteer or donor you no longer have news from.

Real-time statistics — for preparing financial or progress tracking reports

Track each donor or grant opportunity closely and gain immediate access to campaign data and results. Real-time statistics allow you to quickly identify your most effective campaigns so you can replicate only the strategies that work.

Easy-to-use interface — for fast, effective results

To help your team manage projects and priorities effectively, a new application or technology must be intuitive and easy to learn. When a new member joins your team, they need to be able to quickly learn how to use your systems.

Integration with other applications — to save time every day

As mentioned above, your CRM should easily integrate with your other software and utilities, such as Microsoft Outlook or Gmail. This also applies to online payment or donation management applications, which are closely linked to your communication campaigns. This is a way to limit errors and not waste time switching from one app to another. Good integration between your software allows you to connect all your apps and ensure that all your data is up to date.

Scalable subscriptions — your software will always be up to par

It’s essential for an association not to pay for features it doesn’t need. That’s why it’s important to have scalable pricing that’s tailored to your needs from the start. You may need a basic plan, or a more comprehensive subscription that includes marketing automation. Either way, it’s important to find a CRM solution that can adapt to your changing needs.

Act! meets all the needs of non-profit associations

Act! is committed to giving all bw lists nonprofits access to the right features to help them connect with their audiences and succeed in their work. Learn how a simple yet effective customer relationship management solution can help you advocate for your cause, with communications and data tracking tools focused on donor and volunteer outreach, and features to simplify giving, fundraising, and grantmaking.

Act! is easy to customize, offers a mobile version, and includes integration with many apps to fit the way you work.