Get the most out of your existing data: integrate your online fundraising and donation tools to your database.
The importance of having one single database for all of your constituent related data cannot be overstated. From marketing integration to campaign progress reporting, having a unified source of information for all of your fundraising activities is crucial to the planning and success of your nonprofit.
What does integration really mean?
For starters, it means no more duplicating information. There is no reason why your campaign manager should not be able to access the same data as your accounting team, fundraisers, and event planners. It just makes sense.
Integrating your online donation page to your constituent relationship management (CRM) software may seem like a big step, but the results are undeniable. Having everything in one place also means that donor information and contact matching is much more reliable.
What can you learn from linked data?
The answer to this question depends greatly on the type of data you are collecting from your donors. If you have someone in your organization who is not only a volunteer but also a monetary constituent, your system needs to be able to process and retain that information. Your system should be able to tell you at a glance all the ways different people, or groups of people participate with your organization.
If you are collecting specific location information from your donors, you can learn where your highest volume and/or highest capacity donors are situated, to better target your direct mail, volunteers, or fundraising in specific communities.
Proper data integration can lead your nonprofit to discover the best ways to get the highest returns on its efforts. By integrating your online donation page to your CRM, you are enabled to enhance and track lasting relationships.
This means that you are better positioned to send out appeals at certain times of the week or via certain channels. If, for example, you know that the majority of your online donations come in at midday during the workweek, your nonprofit will be can maximize this trend to target appeals more effectively.
This also applies to social media. The more you know and track about interactions with your constituents, the more you can develop programs around outlets like Facebook and Twitter at the times most likely to create greater success. In this way, the integration of your online tools help you maximize your team’s efforts by reaching the greatest number of potential donors at the right time.
Consider linking all of your efforts — social media, online donation pages, etc. — back to your blog as well. The increased traffic to your website will benefit not only your nonprofit’s visibility, but also give a greater audience exposure to the many ways in which they can connect with your nonprofit and further its mission.
Who can benefit from CRM integration?
Short answer: practically any nonprofit organization can improve their relationship with constituents and increase the effectiveness of their fundraising campaigns by integrating their online donation page or portal with their back-end CRM database.
Less short answer: by integrating the constituent data that is acquired through online donation pages, any nonprofit can boost their success rate. But this benefit is strongest with larger organizations with huge data pools. As we’ve seen with corporate giants Netflix and Facebook, the more data points that are collected, the clearer the picture becomes.
When is the best time to integrate online donation pages with CRM?
As the old saying goes, “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today.” The same concept applies to CRM integration.
Whether your nonprofit has amassed a wealth of donor data, or you are interested in learning about the benefits of starting such a process there is no time to start better than right now.
And as always, we would enjoy talking to you how we might help you. Simply request a demo to learn more about StratusLIVE’s online fundraising software now.
