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. A recent article in the Charity Times highlights four steps to using better data to paint a 360-degree view of your supporters.
What is a single supporter view?
In its most basic terms, a single supporter viewis when your organisation has easy access to all of the available information about one particular individual within your database to gain a deeper understanding on 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. 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, I 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 are shared amongst your wider data.
What can you do with a single supporter view?
I suppose 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 CRM software your organisation uses. Assuming your supporter management solution is less than around 5 years old and 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 brand’s ability to transform one-off donors into lifelong supporters.
How can you get a single supporter view?
There are different ways of obtaining all of the insights that build up the full picture of each individual supporter, but all of which naturally involve software.
One option is to use a single system that completely manages fundraising, online giving, volunteer management, event management and communication activity from start to finish. Reporting is straight forward and data is usually secure because the information never leaves the system, but very few software providers attempt this anymore because the functionality cannot compete with the likes of competitive products such as JustGiving and Eventbrite etc. If you do come across one, view with caution.
Going bespoke is another route to achieving your single supporter view. This is often considered by NfP leaders that believe their operation is too far removed to be suitable for a CRM designed for the corporate world. The reality is it will be difficult to justify such a significant spend to your stakeholders, especially if you are likely to be faced with custom built uncompetitive functionality as mentioned above with an uncertain roadmap.
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 Not-for-Profit relevant 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 license model.
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