The Ultimate Guideto Nonprofit CRMSoftware

Now, more than at any other time in history, ministries have the ability to reach the world with the life-changing—and life-saving—gospel.

Technology has made it possible for even small organizations to broadcast their unique message to the ends of the earth…and as ministries flourish, the possibilities are endless.

This great opportunity requires organizations to prepare for growth like never before. Traditionally, many ministries have relied on small-scale software made for entrepreneurs and small businesses. But as their messages have resonated with the world, they’ve found themselves looking for something that can grow with them—so they can keep their focus on ministry, rather than getting sidetracked by the behind-the-scenes technology.

Thankfully, having robust systems no longer means using bloated software with a steep learning curve. It no longer means hiring an entire IT team to provide constant support, upgrades and backups. It also no longer means using a dozen programs, all tenuously attached.

Today, you can install software made specifically for ministries.

This software is usually known as a “Nonprofit CRM.”

CRM stands for “Customer Relationship Management.” With Nonprofit CRM software, you’re able to easily manage the relationships with all your partners and donors. It allows you to see names, addresses, giving history, subscriptions, contact points and more—all in one place. And a CRM specifically made for nonprofits is vital to making sure every relationship is nurtured and that every single person and family who has joined in your vision receives the ministry—and the materials—you’ve promised.

Popular CRMs leading the field are DonorDirect, Blackbaud, Salesforce and Virtuous. Though there a lot of other options popping up in the market, research proves that few CRMs truly cater to the nonprofit space…and even fewer focus on ministries. When choosing a Nonprofit CRM, you want a solution that aligns not only with your mode of operation, but you want to know that the company providing it aligns with your values—because the right solution with an invested partner can make an eternal difference.

What is a Nonprofit CRM?

The HUGE Difference a Nonprofit CRM Makes

Ministries typically have large visions that increase over time. As new opportunities come your way, you don’t want to be held back by your old software. By building your ministry on the foundation of a strong Nonprofit CRM, you’ll immediately see differences that move the needle.

Time Savings. One of the most immediate changes ministries report when they integrate a good Nonprofit CRM solution is a dramatic savings in time. Streamlined software means less training and IT support. Instead of using multiple programs and constantly struggling with getting them to communicate, a good CRM solution makes inter-departmental actions fluid.

Organization. With good Nonprofit CRM software, gone are the days of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. Instead of functions becoming siloed, all departments work with the same data—even if they focus on different elements. Departments are able to work together more easily when new initiatives are rolled out because everyone can see what matters most.

Data. Knowledge is king. Having all the data you need—about your partners, your finances, and your events—at your fingertips helps you make faster decisions and know instinctively which way to turn your ship. Reports can be compiled and printed on the fly, allowing more time for taking care of logistics rather than fighting with technology.

Using the right CRM solution can make a big difference—because it can accomplish more than most people can imagine.

5 Key Questions to Ask When Researching CRMs

Having a good grasp on your ministry’s unique needs for a CRM is a great place to start with your research. Answer these five key questions so you and your team know exactly what you’re hoping to accomplish.

1. Who’s going to use it? What for?

2. What are the most important items we want to track?

3. How could we train our people?

4. What do we need to do to move information from our old solution?

5. What’s our budget?

What Should Your Nonprofit CRM Do?When researching Nonprofit CRM solutions, the waters can quickly get muddied as every sales page (or sales person!) may seem to make a list of promises that don’t quite “match” what other solutions offer. To make your decision crystal clear, here are some of the features you’ll want to make sure the CRM software you’re considering can do today—not at some unspecified point in the future.

Donor ManagementMake sure you can create detailed profiles of each donors with up-to-date contact information. The profile data should have the ability to be filtered and segmented using a variety of criteria so you can include or exclude the correct donors from your communications. These abilities should be closely aligned with your communication strategy, giving you the ability to talk to any segment of donors for any reason, whenever you want. Finally, data should be integrated with every other part of the Nonprofit CRM software, with the ability to be exported at will.

Donor CommunicationMake sure you can create detailed profiles of each donors with up-to-date contact information. The profile data should have the ability to be filtered and segmented using a variety of criteria so you can include or exclude the correct donors from your communications. These abilities should be closely aligned with your communication strategy, giving you the ability to talk to any segment of donors for any reason, whenever you want. Finally, data should be integrated with every other part of the Nonprofit CRM software, with the ability to be exported at will.

Event ManagementEvents should be about getting people together and making a difference—not about coordination. Your CRM should be able to handle both small and large-scale events, including ongoing campaigns like fundraisers. It should handle all the aspects of registration from pre-registration to on-site registration and check-in. For optimal event management, you should have the flexibility to associate staff members and resources with your events, offer varied pricing models, and effectively market your events online so that they’re easy to find.

Volunteer ManagementOf course, ministries of all sizes rely on the faithfulness of volunteers to keep everything running smoothly. A strong CRM should help you enlist volunteers, manage their tasks, assign roles and responsibilities, track their successes, and communicate with your team whether it’s a local or virtual event. Providing access to the data that you volunteers need to do their job, and do it well, makes it easy for them to volunteer again in the future.

Inventory ManagementMost ministries have something for sale or giveaway and managing a wide array of products and ministry materials can be a real headache. Thankfully, your CRM should be able to track all your product offerings, show you what’s in stock and what’s getting low, and give you full visibility into your inventory needs.

Child SponsorshipMore and more ministries have discovered the awesome power in changing one life at a time through child sponsorship programs. A good nonprofit CRM should have this functionality built-in and be able to streamline communication and offer direct access to important documentation. Even if sponsorship isn’t part of your present organizational model, having it available opens future possibilities for your partners.

Full-Access ReportingFinally, your chosen CRM should give you the ability to run a report on any partner segment, for any date, in a variety of helpful visualizations. Tools should be intuitive, easy-to-use, and vary depending on the department pulling the information. For instance, though Accounting and Customer Service use the CRM for different purposes, both should be able to pull information from the same database. Dashboard views should also be able to be personalized, allowing each department to see everything they want—and nothing they don’t.

Media ManagementWhether you’re using television, radio, streaming, podcasting, print or another type of media, you know getting the word out on time isn’t an option; it’s a requirement. Your Nonprofit CRM should be able to store media contracts, track detailed analytics, coordinate programming schedules, and more. Even if broadcast media is a future venture for your ministry, making sure this mammoth feature is built into your CRM will not only prepare you for the future, but it will also make stepping into new spaces just that much easier. This component should also give you clear insight into the types of stories and pictures that resonate online so you can revise your strategies to make the most impact.

Once you’ve fully vetted your CRM choices and made sure they include these criteria, then start looking for other “bonus” features that will make your life—and your choice—easier.

Those features include built-in automation of multiple tasks, high volume transactions, pledge management, call center processing, the ability to assign team members to donors, integration with email and calendar clients, and more.

As mentioned above, when comparing CRMs, we’ve found most ministries tend to boil down their choices down to the four most seasoned competitors in the market: DonorDirect, Blackbaud, Salesforce, and Virtuous. While all four of these brands are capable, each one has a different focus. This affects which option will work best for you. Here are five key areas we recommend you look at when comparing your options, and how DonorDirect stands up to the competition.

All-in-One Software

With dozens of products, Blackbaud and Salesforce cater to just about every type of business. Working with nonprofits is just one of their customer avenues, so often additional programming, coding and integrations are needed for ministries. The downside is that integrating so many different products also means the data isn’t all in one place which can cause challenges.By contrast, DonorDirect offers an all-in-one solution—so all yo DonorDirect gives you the option to stay on-premise or move to the cloud. And being a partner with Microsoft Azure allows the cloud platform to be fast, reliable and always up to date. No more wondering if you’ve got the latest security fix or backup—and you only pay for what you need in terms of cloud storage space.

Support & Training

All CRMs have support and training packages offered as part of their solution. Because DonorDirect considers itself a partner with the ministries it supports, it assigns specific support staff to its partners, to make sure you’re able to get everything up and running based on your needs. In addition to on-site training, DonorDirect has an extensive online portal of step-by-step videos and documentation for your entire ministry team, so answers to questions can be found immediately.

Focus on Ministry Speaking of ministries, let’s deal with the elephant in the room. Because Blackbaud and Salesforce work with a variety of business types, they’re able to provide some unique features. Unfortunately, it also stretches their resources. Catering to ministries isn’t their first priority and it shows.

Comparing Nonprofit CRMs

DonorDirect only works with ministries and has a heart for the amazing work that their ministry partners are doing throughout the world. It often turns down the opportunity to work with general nonprofits because it believes in being focused partners with each ministry.

As one representative stated, “We focus on ministries. We could offer software to anyone, but we choose to work with those who spread the gospel around the world because we are passionate about empowering ministries. And we deeply understand their needs.”

Small ministries find that DonorDirect allows them to grow into a larger vision without having to look for a more robust CRM to handle their needs. Everything they require today—and in the future—is included. Large ministries appreciate that DonorDirect is ministry-minded, created from the ground up with the ability to handle broadcast ministries, child sponsorship organizations, missionary agencies, international relief organizations, and other types of extremely large-scale donor programs.

Future Growth

Some CRMs, like Virtuous, are adept platforms when ministries are small, but when vision grows, you want a CRM that can grow with you. Insulate yourself from outgrowing your CRM and having to start the CRM search all over again—not to mention the time and effort it would take to move systems.

DonorDirect is built specifically to help you grow, and to grow with you. As your vision grows, you shouldn’t feel held back;

you should feel empowered.

Why your CRM Should Be front-facing, too

When researching CRM solutions, most people only look at how the CRM works with the team members inside the organization. But a CRM should be front-facing, too! A good CRM should have the ability for end-users, that is, your donors and ministry partners, to interact with their account.

A Nonprofit CRM like DonorDirect’s StudioEnterprise product has a frontend solution, StudioOnline, that allows your partners to give online, make purchases, register for events, make pledges and sponsorships, view their transaction history, and even maintain and update their accounts. Imagine how many more people you can serve…and time you can save…with a front-facing feature like this!

Donations X X X X

Product Sales/Premiums X

Events X X

Child Sponsorship X

Missionary Support X X X

Integrated Transaction Entry X

Media Attribution X

Volunteer Management X X

Inventory Management X

Detailed Reports X X X X

Direct Mail X X X

Email Campaigns X X X X

Real-time Integrated Ecommerce X

Centralized Data vs. Multiple Silos X

Receipting X X X X

End-of-Year Giving Statements X X X

Built for Growth X X

Built Specifically for Non-profits X X X

Built Specifically for Ministries X

Number of Products 2 50+ 9+ 2

Average Cost $$ $$ $$$$ $

Comparison Chart of Popular Nonprofit CRMs

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See It in ActionChoose DonorDirect, who offers the most comprehensive, robust and complete Nonprofit CRM software solution that’s “ready to go out of the box.” With DonorDirect, you won’t have to worry about being upsold on extras or needing to purchase additional functions just to get it to work. DonorDirect is the leading provider of Nonprofit CRM software for ministries such as:

If you’re unsure, take the time to research the Nonprofit CRM solutions in this report—we know you’ll reach the same conclusion we did: If you’re a growing ministry, the choice is clear.Call 888-937-3183 now or visit DonorDirect.com today to see a free, customized demo of DonorDirect’s StudioEnterprise and StudioOnline solutions in action. We look forward to hearing from—and partnering with—you!

If you’re unsure, take the time to research the Nonprofit CRM solutions in this report—we know you’ll reach the same conclusion we did: If you’re a growing ministry, the choice is clear.

• Samaritan’s Purse• Focus on the Family• Turning Point Ministries• Joyce Meyer Ministries• Food for the Poor

• Billy Graham Evangelistic Association• Pioneers• Kids Alive• And many more!

Who Should Make the Decision About Your CRM?

If you choose the right CRM, your entire ministry will end up using it. Your accounting department, marketing department, donor development teams, and customer service leaders should certainly speak into your CRM selection, but it’s recommended that you allow the final decision to rest with your IT department who will be implementing and supporting the solution. The goal is to have the greatest “buy in” from those who it affects most, as well as each of the departments who are in charge of pushing your ministry forward.”

Call 888-937-3183 now

Or visit DonorDirect.com

See a free, customized demo of DonorDirect’s StudioEnterprise and

StudioOnline solutions in action.

We look forward to hearing from—and partnering with—you!