For any nonprofit fighting the good fight, promoting their worthy cause, the most important relationship is with your donors and volunteers. After all, it’s their contributions of time, energy and yes, money, that help propel you forward, and ultimately, elevate your cause to the next level. At one time, you probably saw your list of donors and volunteers grow and multiply, due in large part, no doubt, to the cultivation of a strong relationship based on clear, consistent communication and current, up to date information. But what happens when your list of donors grows faster? Most importantly, how do you keep track and update your donor and volunteer data without allocating hundreds of man hours or employing an army of data entry specialists?
It takes a CRM
Chances are, you don’t have anywhere near the budget to hire a team of extra service reps; and besides, that’s not a viable solution. Instead of investing in a bunch of terminals, keyboards and headsets, why not implement a system that’s designed to systematically and accurately maintain and oversee your donor and volunteer data? It takes none other than a solid CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system to efficiently and effectively manage every aspect of your donor relationship.
Ok, back in the day, you probably saw a CRM system and thought “great to have, but too much to implement and maintain”. The verdict then: not a viable option. Now fast forward to the middle of 2017 and a solid CRM system is even more powerful than before, but the right CRM is all things powerful, robust, flexible and cost effective. What this means: a solid CRM is a powerful tool that can help your nonprofit effectively manage events, programs, donors, volunteers and supporters, and financial data without straining your budget.
A clear view of every interaction within your NPO
How do you cultivate strong, meaningful relationships with every donor? Make each donor feel special and significant by actually learning about each one. No, this doesn’t mean getting briefed by your staff before each phone call or email; and you don’t have to pour over a thick dossier trying to memorize everything about them. Instead, get to really know each donor by monitoring your NPO/ Donor interactions. A properly implemented CRM system like Microsoft Dynamics CRM (aka Dynamics 365) will help cultivate that relationship. Here are 10 good reasons why nonprofits should use a CRM like Microsoft CRM:
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See the full giving history, recurring donations, and pledge amounts on one easily accessible page, with a few clicks.
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Link social media accounts and connect to donor profiles for easy online connections. A great CRM will integrate the varying aspects of your business, instead of just acting like another semi-useful tool.
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Customize fields, organize donor-related documents to stay on top of every interaction. After all, it’s your database. Set it up, your way.
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Assign donor types depending on your relationship (individuals, households, etc.). Like every customer, every donor is different.
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Effectively Monitor and Coordinate Email subscriptions: Ensuring you’ve explored every means of correspondence and communication with your stakeholders and donors.
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Track and Analyze Donations: Dates, frequency, amounts, stipulations.
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Properly Oversee and Manage Volunteers: Tracking hours, school credit, ensuring compliance.
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Effectively and Properly Address Client cases: Address specific concerns in a timely manner.
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Cultivate and Improve Grant seeking/grant giving: Know where your nonprofit stands at every step of the grant-seeking process.
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Streamline Campaigns: Know who you’ve reached out to at every step of each campaign.
Want to take your nonprofit a step further? How about having your Financials and CRM fully integrated on one platform with only one database to manage? Do your Due Diligence and take a look at Gravity Software’s® (Gravity’s) robust cloud-based accounting solution. Gravity is written on the Microsoft Power Platform (aka Dynamics 365). Financials and CRM are fully integrated and in the cloud. Also, it’s important for nonprofits to maintain transparency at every level of their operation. You have to ask yourself, “Do you have a clear view on every transaction?” Gravity’s Full Audit Trail enables you to track changes in data for security and analytic purposes, not to mention that a full audit trail protects your organization against fraud and drives home accountability. By implementing Gravity’s financial solution and Microsoft-based CRM system, your nonprofit can reduce overhead costs while increasing operational efficiencies across the board.
Gravity offers nonprofits special pricing in conjunction with Microsoft Dynamics 365 because we care.
Gravity Software
Better. Smarter. Accounting.
