What’s the best CRM for charities?

As anyone that works in the charity world knows, fundraising is a year-round effort. You need to be constantly running campaigns and taking advantage of everything at your disposal to give you an edge in the hyper-competitive world of fundraising. That’s why you need to use CRM for charities.

However, the amount of money allocated to technology improvements at your charity might be limited and a full customized implementation of Dynamics 365 might seem out of reach. That’s why CRM Dynamics an HSO Company has created an out-of-the-box CRM for charities that fits a reduced budget.

Dynamics Association Blueprint (DAB) takes advantage of Microsoft’s powerful platform, but allows those with lower technology budgets to consider making the change from their less efficient legacy systems.

DAB will assist charities in all aspects of their operation. From donor management to data reporting to development planning, DAB can do it all!

Specifically, these are four ways a CRM for charities makes sense

1. Improved work processes

Charities need to operate under the same principles as for-profit industries do. Yes, the end goals are slightly different, but ultimately both industries are trying to do the same thing – find ways to create more revenue than expenses.

So anything that helps your staff do more with less is an asset worth pursuing. DAB is that asset. It will help you organize the daily workflow in a way that makes more sense. Instead of wasting staff’s time doing tasks that can be automated, you can have them working on projects that are going to bring in funds – that’s staffing money saved that will directly benefit your cause.

2. Run more events, better (and even some that aren’t on a golf course!)

Running events are the bread and butter of any charity. A successful event can often raise more money in a night than you can in a year of making phone calls or sending e-mails. Yet, many charities only have time to throw together the old annual golf tournament.

As much as a day on the links has a certain tried and tested appeal, the reality is that not everyone likes to hit a little white ball (often into the woods, sadly). Even if you do enjoy golf, there’s only so many charity events you can play in a year. And, every charity seems to have a golf event. In Canada alone, there were more than 50,000 events held last year. That’s a lot of competition.

The reason for that is because it’s easy and it has been done so often that it can be run on autopilot. Charities are stretched thin and no one has the time to be creative. With DAB, staff can be more efficient in managing the event. From inviting the right people to finding sponsors to the nuts and bolts of registering people and organizing the day, everything can be made easier with a CRM for charities.

In turn, you might just have time to play golf and have several other, unique events each year!

​3. Know the numbers

To paraphrase a well-known political quote: “It’s about the data, silly.” Charities have to know the numbers so they can create an effective fundraising strategy. That requires understanding your donors and keeping track of all the information that helps you understand them. DAB will do that.

You will have a 360° view of your entire operation. That will allow you to keep your donor giving history and donor trends at your fingertips at all times. In turn, that will allow you to target them effectively and efficiently.

4. Maintain relationships with donors

Fundraising is really just another form of sales. Instead of selling a customer a product, you are selling a donor a cause. So, the same techniques that work in sales will often work in the charity world too. And anyone who works in sales will tell you that a repeat customer is the best kind of customer.

It is vital to maintain those relationships, which are created through dedicated, consistent and personalized interactions. Helping your staff do just that is perhaps the greatest strength of DAB and Dynamics 365.

You can create targeted newsletter and e-mail campaigns, get reminders to send messages celebrating the personal milestones of your donors, keep track of all past interactions with a donor and much more with DAB.

So, when the time comes to ask for money it doesn’t seem like its coming from a stranger asking for a favor, but rather a friend asking for help.

These are just a few reasons why a CRM for charities makes sense. If you’d like to see a demo of how DAB might work for your charitable organization, give us a shout!