Supporters are the heartbeat of any charity. They are essential in helping you to reach your charity’s overriding objectives. Yet, unless you really get to know and understand them, you risk losing them altogether. Research conducted by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations and other partners shows that there will be a £10bn funding gap over the next 6 months and yet demand for services is surging for more than half of the 700 charities surveyed. Therefore, supporters are needed now more than ever before as charities fight for survival.
So how do you get to know your supporters and vice versa? Many charities have turned to technology to help answer this question because having all of your supporter information contained in one system is key. There are of course many benefits to this including security, compliance, access and the list goes on. But the ability to have a 360-degree (or Single Supporter) View of everyone who supports your charity is worth its weight in gold.
Support comes in all shapes and sizes, and a Single Supporter View helps Not-for-Profit (NfP) fundraising teams effectively reach the right supporters with the right message. Monthly donors, sporadic donors, online givers, fundraisers, volunteers, event attendees, email subscribers, mailer recipients, customers and even staff could, in theory, all be the same person.
What is a Single Supporter View?
In its most basic term, a Single Supporter View is when your organisation has easy access to all of the available information about one particular individual within your database to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship they have with your organisation. Simple.
The specific advantages of a Single Supporter View will vary across different roles. For customer service and fundraising teams reacting to inbound enquiries, a Single Supporter View is essential to turn every call into a success. By having visibility of every interaction between the supporter and your organisation, the power to control the conversation is in your hands. And by every interaction, we mean everything. Every donation, every email sent, received, clicked and unopened, every event attended, every phone call (as well as their contact details), plus much more is all at the disposal of your team.
Traditionally, marketing teams become familiar with supporter data from a source-centric perspective. Building campaigns designed to keep lists of cold data warm, lapsed data re-engaged and priority data in optimal condition. A Single Supporter View turns this approach on its head, and instead, looks at the specific characteristics of individual supporters to see campaign opportunities focused on interests and activities that may be found in your wider data landscape.
It’s not just a one-way relationship either. Supporters receiving regular and targeted communications from you will help them to understand your charity’s mission, immediate needs, fundraising initiatives etc. and most importantly perhaps, where money is being spent.
What can you do with a Single Supporter View?
The real question is, what can you do with a Single Supporter View that you can’t do now? This answer partly relies on what Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software your organisation uses. Assuming your supporter management solution integrates with third party apps like online giving platforms – a Single Supporter View means your campaigns are driven by concise, real-time information about your supporters.
- Personalise with confidence
This is much more than just adding a volunteer or donor’s first name to the subject line of a generic email blast. By using intelligence from the conversions of existing donors you can set up and manage marketing automation paths that replicate the experience, and therefore the success. - Speed up Campaign Planning
You may not see the need for a single customer view when you know that all the data can be found elsewhere; JustGiving, MailChimp, CRM, reports from accounts, etc. But compiling that information and planning the campaign will take more time and effort than the campaign itself, which makes opportunities to react to fast-moving, spontaneous trends mission impossible. - Improve Supporter Experience
As briefly mentioned earlier, supporter-facing teams are in a much better position to offer a consistent experience, which will have a significant impact on your charity’s ability to transform one-off donors into lifelong supporters.
How can you get a Single Supporter View?
For your campaigns to benefit from Single Supporter insights, you need best-of-breed software that can integrate with every third-party software to get the data in the first place. We’ve customised Microsoft’s leading CRM system specifically for Not-for-Profit organisations, and with it comes a 360-degree view of your supporters. NfP 365 brings all of the relevant charity sector functionality to the forefront, so you have a best-of-breed solution, with the security of Microsoft’s super secure Azure cloud environment as well as Microsoft’s discounted charity licence model.
For smaller charities looking for more affordable options, Microsoft has some great new solutions which we have enhanced to help you take the first step on your digital transformation journey. Why not view our on demand webinar to find out more about our donor management CRM solution (NfP 365 Accelerator) – simply complete the form at the side of this page.