Customer relationship management (CRM): A technology for managing all of your organization’s relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers.
Learning Through Experience
Most of us have to work with a CRM to some extent. Some are informal and low tech–like a collection of business cards with notes jotted on the back. Others are based on software platforms that range widely in capability and expense.
These are incredibly useful tools, and their usefulness increases as they become more streamlined and automated.
When the GSF first stood up, we knew that we had to be better than notes on business cards. In our initial research, we found an affordable CRM software called DonorPro and we went for it.
While DonorPro was a great system, over our first two years as a foundation it became clear that it was targeted toward a different type of organization. It was built for charities and donations, whereas we needed something more focused on connecting our member network–both virtually and at events.
Time for Round 2
Now that the Foundation had a solid set of legs under it, we had a much better idea of what we were looking for. After weeks of research, demos, negotiations, and assessments, we landed on a web-based software called MemberSuite…and we pulled the trigger.
As our Navy brethren love to say, “the only easy day was yesterday,” and this became a common mindset as we worked to migrate our data to our new system. Our team worked…and worked and worked…to make sure that the data was imported in a way that it would be accurate and usable.
We did that for a year. And it paid off!
Check back tomorrow to learn more about how this new CRM will help the Foundation…
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