CRMs Don't Have to Be Scary

A lot goes into running a nonprofit. From determining how to hit fundraising goals, to developing new programs to better serve community needs, the work never ends. It probably always feels like there’s never enough time or hands to get the job done. With so much at stake, getting started with a CRM sounds scary, but when it comes to increasing your organization’s capacity and ultimately freeing up more bandwidth to focus on the mission, a CRM could be just what your organization needs. 

So what exactly is a CRM? 

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. Nonprofits know that relationships are vital to success as an organization and building strong relationships with donors, volunteers, funders, board members, and the community means nothing if there’s no system in place to track that progress. Enter the CRM. CRM software is designed to make your work easier by tracking your data. CRMs can be super customizable and equipped to deal with a huge variety of tasks according to the needs of your organization. 

Which CRM is right for you? 

A CRM for nonprofits will provide tools for fundraising, program management, grantmaking, recruiting, and managing donors. Salesforce provides a CRM designed for nonprofits that offers special features created specifically with nonprofits in mind. Salesforce is a cloud-based CRM. This means that rather than storing data on location, Salesforce allows organizations to access their information remotely via the internet. No software to install or desktop applications necessary. Using Salesforce means easy data tracking, a streamlined fundraising process, and a central hub for the inner workings of your organization. The system can even be configured to automate your current mundane administrative tasks. Not only does this streamline your processes and make your data more accessible, but prioritizing digital transformation and leaning into data-driven decision-making will set your organization up for long-term success. With Salesforce, you’ll be able to take accounting, donation tracking, and report building off of your to-do list and have the data right at your fingertips to tell your story in the most compelling way. 

How we help

As proud Salesforce Partners, we’re here to guide you from start to finish but we won’t just build you a CRM. We will work with your team to identify their precise needs, we will clean and migrate your existing data, and we will include your team in the entire process so they can learn as they go. This method ensures that your people feel prepared to use your new system on their own - it’s the Idealist Way. 

Yes, a CRM can seem scary - who wants to take time to learn a new system when there are so many other things to accomplish before the end of the year? But don’t let CRMs frighten you! We’re here to help. Idealist Consulting has been working with nonprofits for over 15 years to educate, guide, and empower organizations like yours to own their CRMs (whether that means installing a brand-new system or reviving your existing one). The story of your mission is made more powerful when backed by data, and a CRM configured specifically for a nonprofit organization is anything but scary.

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