Consciously choosing a CRM for charities

"For charitable organizations, it is important to think from the perspective of donors. Every euro that comes in should be spent as effectively as possible," states Simone Vogel from World Animal Protection. Based on extensive orientation with an independent advisor, they chose Social Matters, a CRM solution specifically for charities.

End of application

World Animal Protection Netherlands (WAPN) is part of an international network dedicated to animal welfare. The Dutch branch is located in The Hague and houses a team of 35 people. Simone serves as the head of fundraising. "We like to work based on insights," she continues her story. "Previously, we had a donor administration linked to a marketing database and marketing automation. Unfortunately, the application for our donor administration will no longer be technically supported from 2027. Therefore, we had to look for an alternative."

Orientation with an independent advisor

One thing was certain for WAPN: they were looking for an experienced CRM partner with a solution specifically for charitable organizations. Together with an independent advisor, they conducted an extensive analysis of internal wishes and requirements, plus a longlist of potential CRM partners. After a presentation of a plan of action, the choice ultimately fell unanimously on Axelio. "Simply because we had the best click with their people," Simone explains.

Wishes and requirements

Why did WAPN want a CRM solution specifically for the charitable sector? Simone explains: "It requires specific functionalities. For example, we need to be able to collect 60,000 authorizations monthly and process donations from legacies. There is a whole process involved. Additionally, our new CRM had to communicate well with our online system," Simone adds. "Everything that happens via the website and forms is then directly visible to us. This way, we can ensure a comprehensive view of our donors."

Complex, dual implementation

WAPN decided to simultaneously restructure its marketing automation with a trusted partner during the implementation of the new CRM system. Simone: "This meant we had two implementations happening at the same time that needed to align in terms of planning. This sometimes posed challenges. Fortunately, Axelio could often communicate directly with the marketing automation team." Ultimately, everything turned out well. "We are proud of the system that is now in place."

Communicating more relevantly

When it comes to the biggest advantage of the CRM system Social Matters, Simone doesn't have to think long: "It is future-proof. Axelio continues to develop it and automatically incorporates our CRM into those developments. Additionally, through the combination with our new marketing automation, we can communicate more personally and relevantly with donors. We can now easily tailor the content of emails to the personal interests of donors."

Time-saving

"Many administrative processes are now automated," she explains. "When people made individual donations, colleagues used to have to manually process those in our system. Now, that mostly happens automatically. This saves us a lot of time. And what's convenient is that we can now also assign donations to a specific project." She also finds it pleasant that key users are less dependent on their data colleagues. "Colleagues can now independently make visible who has donated above a certain amount or what gift donors want to receive for a particular campaign. This allows our data analyst to focus on more challenging issues and reports."

Eliminating noise

As one team, WAPN worked with Axelio. "Axelio built the entire implementation around the availability of our people," Simone notes. "As a partner, they are very open, flexible, and customer-oriented. And that might also be their pitfall," she smiles. "They prefer to make everything possible, while I believe they could have pushed back at certain moments based on their experiences with other organizations. On the other hand, I greatly appreciate that I could have difficult conversations with the project manager from Axelio. He immediately sensed when there was noise on the line. The bumps we encountered were always resolved well."

Community building

"Axelio truly aims for a long-term partnership. You can feel it in everything," Simone concludes. "They also actively build a community. Every two years, they organize Social Matters Connect, a customer day for all charitable organizations that use Social Matters. I find that extremely interesting. I believe in the power of sharing knowledge. Charitable organizations often face the same challenges. By discussing these, you come up with new ideas. This also applies to Axelio. The topics that come up during these customer days are taken into account to further develop Social Matters. This way, we all benefit."

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