My development team relied heavily on him for critical and clean data from around the country. Andy and I were regularly having conversations on how to make the data available more hygienic and comprehensive.
SUCCESS, TOGETHER
Transformative CiviCRM Project
Create a transformative CiviCRM digital space to intelligently gather meaningful data to better engage with your supporters.
Whether you’re a seasoned nonprofit director or a volunteer just trying to get up to speed, you know advancing your nonprofit’s cause is no easy task. It requires thoughtful leadership, dedication, hard work, and the right tools specifically tailored to your organization’s way of working.
And of course, money to power it all forward.
But here’s the thing: in order to capture your audience’s attention and make a lasting impact, you need to have the right data at your fingertips for the opportunities that come your way.
Are you struggling with:
- Tracking and engaging with your constituents in one place?
- Managing your members in alignment with your actual membership policies?
- Promoting your events that capture everything you need with variable, member only pricing?
- Accurate and real-time reporting that gives you insights on what is working so you are informed on who to target next?
- Giving specific access-levels to different team members and volunteers?
If any of these points resonate, then CiviCRM might be a good fit for you.
Remove barriers
Are you feeling held back with systems that don't quite cut it?
Scale your impact
Move forward with ease using CiviCRM
Now imagine getting to a better place, where:
- You’ve left behind spreadsheets or the painstaking hours of working between siloed systems,
- Your members are automatically segmented and integrated with your payment system of choice,
- Your events handle registration, sponsorships and fees seamlessly,
- Your development team is raising more funds because they have a steady stream of fruitful opportunities to pursue and more time to focus on that,
- Your system is integrated and democratized to people who are motivated to advance your mission.
These are just some of the reasons why I work with CiviCRM – designed exclusively for nonprofits like yours, for effective membership engagement and fundraising so you can do more good.
Systematic Process
4 steps to CiviCRM success
Having a successful implementation isn’t rocket science, but there is a systematic path to follow. I’ll just ask that you will carve out some time at the outset to define the goals so I can get to work. Too many try and DIY it and blame the tool. There is a better and more balanced way forward.
1
Questionnaire with Discovery
Together, we'll clearly hone in on your goals so you are more than satisfied with with the end result. You'll start with a questionnaire that will guide our listening session(s) where I'll be asking in more detail the workflows and problems we're actively going to fix.
2
Requirements gathering
Your goals will be verified against requirements to develop a roadmap for how CiviCRM can serve your long-term objectives. This will establish a few options for your consideration.
3
Build phase
I’ll proceed with the implementation that will include periodic check-ins for feedback to accommodate for adjustments within the master plan.
4
Unlimited Support
You will gradually transition to owning the system after "going live" over the course of the next month or so. Here I provide personal, high-touch support of what you need to know to carry out your work so you are "taught to fish."
Features
Comprehensive and powerful CiviCRM features
Contact Management
Efficiently manage and organize your contacts in one central location. This feature is crucial for building relationships with donors, volunteers, and other constituents, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of your network.
Fundraising Management
CiviContribute makes tracking donations and reporting on the effectiveness of fundraising campaigns easier. This helps maintain transparency, analyze donation trends, and report on the financial health of your nonprofit.
Event Management
Plan and execute events seamlessly. CiviEvent streamlines event registration, attendance tracking, and communication, enhancing your organization's ability to host successful and engaging events.
Membership Management
Use CiviMember to effectively manage memberships, subscriptions, and renewals. This feature is essential for organizations with membership structures, ensuring timely renewals, member engagement, and sustained support.
Communication and Campaigns
CiviMail and CiviCampaign facilitates targeted and personalized communications. This empowers organizations to run effective campaigns, engage supporters, and build a strong online presence, ultimately driving success.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Most CiviCRM implementations take between 2 and 6 months, depending on the scope and complexity.
Smaller projects—with a focused use case and standard data imports—can be completed within a few weeks. Larger or more customized systems that involve workflows, advanced automations, custom extension development, or extensive data migration naturally take longer. The timeline also depends on how quickly your team can review, test, and provide feedback along the way.
Yes — with the right training. CiviCRM is powerful and flexible, which also means it comes with a learning curve. Like any other multi-faceted tool.
Because it has many options for customization it goes a long way to do some upfront training. And there’s even a Doc Bot AI tool to help you get the answers from the documentation. Like anything new, it takes getting used to. It’s typical that old habits from previous systems may need to be adjusted to the new ways. That’s why each implementation focuses heavily on training for a smooth onboarding.
CiviCRM integrates with several email services. If you have an SMTP credentials you can send out email. However, there are specifically tailored extensions that fully integrate to collect bounces so your email list always stays clean and good email reptuation. I commonly recommend AWS, Sparkpost or Sendgrid. For a more comprehensive list check out the extensions directory.
Absolutely, and in fact I’ll integrate CiviCRM directly within your WordPress site or have a standalone site that connects remotely. I can move your site to a hosting environment that is suitable to run CiviCRM (not shared hosting). Not happy with your site and know it’s time for a fresh start? I partner with web design build clean and functional sites if you are also in need of that for your project.
CiviCRM is powered by an amazing group of developers and other technical folks; this is what brings you the best nonprofit CRM software out there. A strong community that build and supports the product propelling it from strength to strength. It’s completely true that it does attract “accidental techies” since it is open-source. But the bottom line for nonprofit leaders and end-users like yourself, it is 100% designed to advance all types of nonprofits.
No, that’s one of the key benefits of open source software. Other than ensuring your hosting is adequate and running properly, there are no restrictions on this.
The trade off with CiviCRM comes down to limitations of simplicity v the cost of complexity. For small nonprofits, the key is to maximize all of the out of the box functionality, and in-browser customization potential. And I’ll tell you, there’s plenty you can do without needing to “write code” with the advent of Search Kit and Form Builder.
For hard data, go ahead and jump on over to the stats page and you’ll see about 50% of all CiviCRM sites have 10,000 or less contacts.
You have the option from several processors such as Stripe, Authorize.net and PayPal. This seamlessly uses those payment gateways and logs all contributions automatically, including recurring donations. The fees are only what the processor charges, there is no “add-on fees” you may find with other commercial donation platforms.
For a more comprehensive list check out the extensions directory.
Remember when you did something for the first time? The time it took to spin up to do it. You probably made some mistakes along the way. Is your organization’s mission worth putting at risk? Hopefully not.
Having a professional (to the extent that fits your situation) that’s been there many times before will save you substantial amounts of time, headache and lost opportunities. In the long run, most organizations find it wise to start with some outside help to establish a solid foundation. If you’re only doing this once, why do it partially wrong the first time?
With this said, if you want to be coached or partition off parts of the work and be the primary responsible person for your implementation, I do provide advisement to “fill gaps” if that’s an arrangement that makes sense, e.g. you’re a pretty technical person already.
This can vary widely; it really boils down to what you are doing and your internal team’s capabilities. A rough estimate for a small to medium-sized organization is to expect to pay $900-3,000 annually to cover hosting, CiviCRM updates, general maintenance plus it all depends on the support you may need every now and then.
Want some hard data and nitty gritty details? Here is a survey funded by Mozilla that analyzed this type of information and a whole lot more. See Part E: The cost of the CRM.
Optimize Operations
Build a better CRM. Let's make it happen, together.
Implementing a powerful tool like CiviCRM is an investment in the future of your cause, and I’m here to help you do it right the first time without hassle. I want to hear your most pressing objectives so that you can get to the next chapter in your organization’s growth.