May/June 2009

Moves Management™ Made Easy: How CRM Puts You In Sync with Your Major Donors

by Rachel English, Common Ground Program Manager, Convio; Former Nonprofit Director of Development

The following is an excerpt from Moves Management™ Made Easy: How CRM Puts You In Sync with Your Major Donors.

To download the full report click here.

In today's tough economy, successfully competing for donor dollars requires cultivating strong relationships with your major giving prospects. Moves Management is the set of processes nonprofits rely on to develop these constituent relationships and move them toward major giving. But simply adopting Moves Management as a strategy isn’t enough. Its full potential is only realized when supported by tools that help you identify and foster the personal relationships essential to giving.

The depth and progress of your donor relationships can be significantly impacted by the efficiency and effectiveness of your fundraising tools. If you use Moves Management, Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) is the technology tool you’ll need to track and grow those relationships. CRM goes beyond the capabilities of a donor database, working hand in hand with your organization’s major gift processes to help you nurture your best prospects and move the giving process along in a way that works best for you.

Major gifts are a priority for every nonprofit, large or small. Every organization has its own approach to cultivating constituents along the continuum toward major donations.
Whatever your approach to Moves Management, the challenge probably isn’t tracking the gifts once they’ve been given/received; it’s identifying the best prospects — weeding out those with little potential and focusing on the promising ones.

“A good CRM system helps you recognize relationships you can stop pursuing, saving you valuable time and helping you avoid wasted effort. More importantly, a CRM system prevents important opportunities from falling through the cracks.”
– Keith Heller, Principal, Heller Consulting

Having the ability to consistently identify and cultivate the most promising prospects enables your staff to nurture relationships in a way that’s tactful, timely and efficient.

CRM fits your Moves Management process, and helps you improve each step
There’s no one size fits all answer for how to engage in Moves Management. Developing a successful strategy requires flexibility and staff adoption, both in terms of process and technology. But one thing’s for sure: your success is limited if you’re forced to track relationships the way a software vendor has dictated in their product. If you’re having to copy and paste emails to share with others, or use an ad hoc process that involves a lot of Excel spreadsheets, for example, the result will be missed opportunities or, at the very least, non-coordinated communication to major donors and prospects.

CRM helps you develop stronger relationships that lead to larger gifts
A CRM enables a truer understanding of how your constituents are engaged with your organization, and minimizes the tedious task of keying information into the database.
For example:

• If a prospective major donor gives online, you need to have that information quickly and with accuracy. You can’t afford to wait a week or more for the external data source to update your database.
• If a prospective major donor has an email exchange with your executive director, you need to see the conversation – integration with email tools like Outlook is critical here.
• If a prospective major donor speaks with another staff member about an upcoming volunteer opportunity, you need to have access to this information so that you’re aware of their interest in your programs.
• If a prospective major donor is listed on Facebook, LinkedIn, or other social or professional networking sites, your CRM can inform you of this so you can friend them and extend your relationship online.

These are just a few examples of the information you’ll have quick access to with a CRM – without having to dig through sticky notes, Excel files, or multiple programs (not to mention departments).

Ultimately, Moves Management is about staff nurturing donor relationships. Methods vary from organization to organization. Some organizations favor a formal approach with detailed procedures and defined stages. For others, the process is informal. Often, not all steps along the way are recorded and not all procedures are pre-planned. You need a system that’s flexible and that supports all components of Moves Management — from prospecting to cultivation to solicitation to stewardship. CRM can make all of these much easier on your staff and support more personal relationships with your constituents and prospects.

Download the full guide, Moves Management Made Easy, to learn more about how CRM can help nonprofits of all sizes improve major gift prospecting, gift cultivation, stewardship, and deliver meaningful analysis to improve your Moves Management programs.