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June 23, 2022 | 7 min read
Hi and welcome back to the Friday Five, our ongoing series highlighting the benefits of CRMs. Building on last week’s indications that it’s time to adopt a CRM, this week will focus on convincing decision makers that it’s time to us a CRM.
You’ve done the research, completed the analysis and are convinced a CRM is important to the growth and continued success for your organization. The next step is to get your executive director or relevant stakeholders to see the benefit. Showing benefits in story form helps grab attention and allows you to paint a full picture of what a CRM can offer.
Here are 5 tips for proposing a CRM to your internal team:
Start by reminding everyone of your organization’s mission and all the great things you do. It’s a lot of work, right? Show your audience what your typical day involves with explicit focus on the routine and repetitive tasks. Emphasize the pain points, signaling there is a limit to the time in a day, but no end in sight for your – and their – ever growing to-do list. Now, provide a solution: a great way to free time through automation. Since most CRMs include automated features, adoption will translate to efficiency.
Remember, setting up automations helps in a variety of ways. From emailing receipts and communication reminders, to notifications of when donors cross fundraising thresholds and campaign reports. Taking the time to set up a system where repetitive tasks are completed for you will save exponential amounts of time. Saving as little as 10 minutes each month translates to 2 hours in a year. Those 2 hours could mean securing another major donation!
Don’t get super detailed or bring up jargon. Confusing your audience is not he goal. Sure, you may mention possible APIs or bring up which KPIs are in the dashboard, but they should be explained simply and framed as easy to use and beneficial. At the end of the day, most of your audience is unlikely to be the ones who use the software daily. They don’t need minute detail, they need the full picture.
Recommend a champion of the software, most likely you, who will learn the ins-and-outs of it. Speak to what the training would involve and if there is currently a plan in place already. Acknowledge that it will take some time to learn and build the system, but this will pay dividends in the long run.
Take the uneasiness out of both technology and change for your audience. Embrace the work and emphasize the benefits!
If you’ve read our previous posts, you already know how important we think solid data is. A key benefit of using a CRM is centralized, available and exportable data. Having organized information in one location removes possible data loss due to multiple excel files, software, even paper files. PRO TIP: Further reduce your administrative burden and schedule a report for the end of a campaign or event so it is one less thing to do during the finishing stages.
As we like to say at DonorNinja, do more with your data.
You know where you are, but where are you going? As your organization builds or modifies strategic plans, highlight how a CRM will work in concert to deliver exceptional results. Include a “roadmap”, or plan describing how adoption of a CRM will accelerate or amplify plans for growth and fundraising. Remind your audience this is an investment for the continue success for your organization.
We encourage you to practice beforehand. Consider reading some best practices on board presentations, giving a convincing pitch or even check out a video. This could be an eventful presentation / conversation. You will want to be sure to keep your audience engaged. You know them best. Interests, apprehensions and where the barriers to approval will be. Tailor your presentation to speak to the aspects which will resonate, practice and refine.
Even if it’s a “no” this go’round, there may be beneficial information in these posts for future presentations. You can never be too skilled at the art of persuasion, especially when donations are needed to fuel your mission.
We hope that you liked this week’s Friday Five. As always, like, share, and comment on your favorite tips!
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DonorNinja is a software tool focused on streamlining donor and constituent management for nonprofits of all sizes. Our easy-to-use, unified platform allows nonprofit partners to manage fundraising, marketing, reporting and events in one place, affordably.
We believe strongly in relationships, so our team is partner focused, always striving to provide the best experience possible. We know the work your organization does matters and our system frees time so you can better focus on your amazing work!
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