Accelerating Momentum: Fueling Dynamic Fundraising’s Ongoing Nonprofit Support

Editor's Note: Fueling Dynamic Fundraising helps nonprofit organizations strengthen their fundraising capacity and expand their mission impact. Through a partnership with The Fund Raising School at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, The Patterson Foundation brings nationally recognized fundraising expertise to our community through proven courses, cohort-based learning, and ongoing implementation support.

Through Accelerating Momentum, Fueling Dynamic Fundraising (FDF) offered two virtual courses to help nonprofits select and make better use of customer relationship management (CRM) systems. 

A CRM is a valuable tool for managing an organization’s relationships and interactions with donors and other supporters. There are a ton of options available to NPOs (nonprofit organizations) spanning capacity and cost ranges. It’s not only a complicated decision for many emerging and growing nonprofits, it’s also a cost-sensitive one.

FDF provided two CRM course options: “Where Do I Begin? CRM Essentials for Emerging Organizations” for organizations new to CRMs and “Making the Most of Your System, Data and Processes” for those already using a CRM but wanting to get more out of it. Thirty nonprofits joined these two virtual programs. 

Donor database functionality, features, capacities, segmentation and stewardship tools, AI use and data quality, and best practices surrounding donor confidentiality represent a few of the topics covered. Cost and value of donor database investment circulated through the presentation and participant discussions. 

CRMs have become a central hub of NPOs’ donor management and stewardship and a valuable investment for agencies needing to advance from spreadsheets. Typically, agencies face two prominent obstacles in CRM selection and purchase: agreeing that a CRM's value outweighs the investment costs, and defining what the agency needs in a CRM.

Instructor Holly Parrish, a Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE) with 25 years of experience in nonprofit data management, provided objective insight and advice on selection, implementation, and use guidelines. In most nonprofits, the CRM, especially one well selected and maintained, will be a valuable “employee” that endures as other employees may come and go. The CRM holds the vital data needed to inform and grow an agency’s donor management, transactions, and donor histories for present use and into the future.

Using her experience as a Principal Consultant for JCA, Inc., a premier nonprofit technology and operations consulting group, Holly led the participants through hands-on activities to explore their current and potential use of technology to strengthen their fundraising.

Participants shared that they appreciated learning high-level concepts, new terms, and practical tips to increase their use of their current system. 

With a clearer understanding of what a CRM can do and how to use one effectively, participants left better equipped to manage donor information and strengthen relationships with supporters.