Qualitative research into attitudes towards CRM* systems in school development offices

Qualitative research into

attitudes towards CRM* systems

in school development offices

Prepared by Davina Fairweather

Martin Horrox

graycell consulting limited May 2014

‘The market is constantly changing, costs vary, budgets vary etc. Each has their merits; they are all OK, none is perfect. I think a good approach might be to talk through the things to

consider before purchasing a system rather than necessarily evaluating individual systems.’

‘Go and talk to other users. Don’t just go on what the companies say.’

Objectives

• To investigate usage of and attitudes towards

CRM systems used in schools these days

• To establish what is new in terms of building

alumni and wider community relations

• To develop a check-list of questions to confirm

with suppliers when setting up and/or changing or adding systems

Methodology

• 21 in-depth interviews of up to an hour, over

the telephone or face-to-face, with experienced development professionals

• A range of schools: size, age range, gender and

size of department

• Each supplier was invited to contribute to the

research

• A unique opportunity for some leading

A note of caution

• Not planned as a representative study

• The scope of the research excluded hands-on

testing of each system

• This research is not a substitute for inviting a

presentation by suppliers or talking to other experienced users

• graycell is not promoting any one system

Suppliers invited to participate

• ThankQ

• WCBS/Web Alumnus • Donorflex

• InTouch (part of the Access Group) • Alumni Solutions

• Potentiality

• PelicanConnect

Baines Cutler

benchmarking study 2012

Our findings

• Speed of technological change, new suppliers

and new ways of approaching CRM

• Independent schools falling behind other sectors • Schools need help with specifying their

requirements – even for experienced professionals

• Development professionals may no longer see

one system for life

• Customer service is a differentiating factor • On-line communities are the way forward

Choice of system

• Size of school and community tend not

to determine the choice of CRM system

• Budget and requirements are the main drivers • Also important are background of personnel

and department size

• Where do you start?

Raiser’s Edge - strengths

• Remote hosting enables access from anywhere • Net community makes it easy to manage

bulk emails

• Recording, manipulating and reporting data

well regarded

• Data exporting very straightforward

• Easy to track Appeals and calculate % responding, gifts

etc.

• Logical and intuitive system • Help desk is very good

Raiser’s Edge - limitations

• Can do too much for a small department.

‘It can be too complicated for its purpose and hard to find solutions. Its on-line community is

not as developed as it could be.’

‘It was very complicated – I always needed help from dedicated database officers. My

previous university development office was moving to another system.’

Raiser’s Edge - limitations

be free’.

• Importing data is not easy

‘The import facility is not very good and without a dedicated data manager it is difficult for me. I have purchased Importomatic for £3000. This is a plug-in which makes it very easy to import complex

information. We can easily get all the parent information, job information and relationships.’

Raiser’s Edge

‘They have not kept up with social media. Their interface looks like an old Windows system. Now I would not put them on such a high pedestal.’

‘It might be a sledgehammer to crack a nut and seemed a [too] big, powerful system

for a lot of money.’

‘Blackbaud don’t seem to understand small teams.’

Raiser’s Edge

‘Don’t buy the market leader unless you are sure of your team’s capabilities. I could get more out of

[Raiser’s Edge] if I had a qualified information manager – but that presumes a bigger operation

than I have at present.’

‘We did not need the whole functionality and it was the more expensive to set up but

[compared to the others we looked at]

over 5 years it worked out the cheaper option. We were surprised, but we are in it for the long haul.’

Donor Strategy - strengths

it is easy to pick out the right person

• Flexibility to create new fields

• Mapping tool means can readily see where

alumni are and their density

• There are events management and careers

modules – and you can buy them as you need them, to spread the cost

• Intuitive – ‘more so than any other system we

Donor Strategy - strengths

• Customer service was good at the set up

but can be slow now

‘They don’t have the facility to take over

your computer. It can be frustrating as

they will ask is it urgent before

responding.’

• Once the helpdesk takes on your

problem, it is well handled

• The events module is smoother than in

Donor Strategy - limitations

‘It’s not quite as easy to extract the information. With Donor Strategy you need SQL knowledge.’

• Importing ‘It is clunky in terms of importing from

SIMS’

‘We have purchased a widget so that our school system will talk to Donor Strategy.’

• The major gifts module ‘would not connect easily

Donor Strategy - limitations

calculate GiftAid at the time of entry, only when GiftAid is actually claimed

‘We toyed with the idea of having the finance package and invited the finance office to sit in on the training but we did not take the package

because we wanted responsibility for GiftAid to be clear – with the finance office.’

Donor Strategy - limitations

• Filtering is not straightforward – you have to keep redefining the filters

‘If you don’t have a background in these systems you will need a lot of training and support and that will be at a

cost.’

‘The account manager changed in 3 times in 12 months and at this stage this is a weakness. At the end of the phone they are pretty good but it costs to have them visit

ThankQ - strengths

‘It looks very easy to use and the interface is fantastic. The customer support looked great and they have a very good history of helping

organisations.’

‘Agile and web based – it feels like it is tailored for the UK.’

‘ThankQ is good for a small start-up office.’

[Raiser’s Edge chosen, yet] ‘we could have gone with ThankQ but they did not have the track record. They are Cloud based and were

attractive. It looks very easy to use and they have a very good history of helping organisations.’

‘We went through a tender process with four systems. ThankQ does everything a school wants. Their implementation was strong, training

and support are good, they stuck to the budget and they were open about what ThankQ can and cannot do. Unlike Raiser’s Edge, they do not use their own emailing system; they can also link

to the Sage accounting system.’

‘WebALUMNUS can be good for alumni, less so for fundraising. Raiser’s Edge is first-off for fundraising; alumni is the “add-on”. ThankQ is

based on relationships.’

ThankQ limitations

InTouch

‘InTouch have consistently provided us with excellent

service and a great product which they have

upgraded several times [since 2005]. They are also great value for money compared to some of the other systems on the market. The online aspect of

the system works seamlessly with the main

database. There are no limitations with regard to the needs of the [alumni association] but, on occasion, one of my colleagues in the Development Office has

wanted something new (like a special report) which the team at InTouch have always been able to

provide after a bit of consultation.’

WCBS - strengths

• Good for a small department where do not

have a lot of time to manage the database

• Easy and simplistic to use so can pick up easily

if have not used some aspects for a while

• Can do things very quickly • Data easily exports into Excel • Mail merges straightforward

WCBS - strengths

• Current pupil systems easily transferred • Customer service is good ‘when I have

phoned they have always been able to help.’

• User group meetings – very responsive to

WCBS - limitations

‘When we carried out our Telethon we could not integrate all the data. A bulk upload would have

over-written all of our data. There is an inability to import or synchronise data e.g. from LinkedIn.’

‘It is difficult to run queries and get information out of it as you can with other systems.’

WCBS - limitations

‘WCBS do not seem to have much appetite

to update. There does not seem to be the follow up and there has been no development in the last two years despite

suggestions. The development module is not given priority over the accounting

packages.’

• Unable to record legacies –‘we have to

‘You cannot manipulate data easily

(e.g. search by postcode); there is no HTML facility on email, so communications cannot be

branded; service is appalling.’

‘It is clunky to add attendance at events. It is

clunky to change addresses. It is clunky to add free-text comments. WebALUMNUS tried and

failed to link to social media. Customising

reports is hard. There are thousands of problems. Even importing student records from PASS is not

easy. But it is simple, and it is cheap.’

Setting budgets

• Set up

• Annual fee

• Licences

• Training

• Extra widgets &

modules

• Resources

• Contingency

• Discounts

• Timeframe

• Income

• Savings on current

activities

Requirements: a checklist for

choosing the best system

‘It is very difficult when spec’ing a new system at start up. They will blind you

Considerations

(a full checklist is available in the report)

• Matching with needs

• Import and export of data • Intuitive use

• Supporting your brand • Querying

• Innovation/future-proofing • Customer service

Your online community

• 68% of recent school leavers (aged 18-24) said

they would be happy to be contacted by students from their old school/college for careers advice

• 50% said they had never thought about donating

to their old school or college

• Most often given reasons for never having donated

to their school/college:

‘I’ve never thought about it’

‘I didn’t think they needed the money’

An on-line community

• Creates a personalised, branded on-line

experience for your supporters

• Allows your community to

– Connect and communicate with you and

each other

– Set up groups

– Take control of their profile

– Benefit from the experiences of others – Connect with Facebook and LinkedIn • Involves your current pupils

Potentiality

‘We have looked at Potentiality and felt it was more flexible, usable and effective.

For example ‘spiders’ go out through Facebook and if they are on our profile they will be

automatically emailed. Donor Strategy need to keep up with Potentiality.’

‘We are talking about the imminent acquisition of Potentiality and have been very impressed

[as ‘front end’ for WCBS PASS]. They have responded well to all our questions and it fits

‘They are fresh, motivated, well presented, open to suggestion and user-friendly we were very impressed and the techies are very impressive.’ ‘The analytics function is good – you can see all the pages accessed and it presents a graph of

connectivity through events etc. and it will compare contacts with the Zoopla database to

show data on the value of houses to give a crude estimate of wealth and enthusiasm.’ ‘We have not yet used the [virtual] games but we will try out some of the sports which we think

will appeal to some of the community.’

PelicanConnect

‘They came to the school having done a lot of

research [unlike the sales person from Raiser’s Edge]. They had done a mock-up site of the school and had

really looked at the school.’

‘PelicanConnect were prepared to be flexible over the price [which Raiser’s Edge were not].

‘In our experience independent schools [compared to

higher education and charities] are behind the most

and seem to be the most impressionable when it comes to what the suppliers tell them. With all of the ‘out of the

box’ solutions like Raiser’s Edge (and nobody is buying that now), ThankQ and InTouch, and to some extent Potentiality you can’t really configure what you want. Technology is no longer nice to have but a need to have.

As your older alumni are replaced by younger your online look and feel is critical.

What schools should be asking is which platform should I be using and will my database integrate with that platform – such as Sales Force, Microsoft Dynamics?’

Can independent schools

start to lead the way by being

less at the mercy of suppliers

and more in the driving seat?

www.graycellconsulting.co.uk Davina Fairweather 07854 074830 [email protected] Martin Horrox 07794 678566 [email protected] Office 01823 491407

Suppliers’ contact details

• Alumni Solutions; www.alumnisolutions.co.uk; Chris Acton; 0207 7361211

• Donorflex; www.donorflex.com; [email protected]

• Donor Strategy (Advanced NFP); www.advancednfp.com/products/donor-strategy.aspx

[email protected]

• Importomatic; www.omaticsoftware.com/Solutions/TheRaisersEdge/ImportOmatic.aspx

• InTouch; www.intouchsoftware.co.uk; Chris Aucken; [email protected]

• PelicanConnect; www.pelicanconnect.com; Sian Morley-Smith;

[email protected]

• Potentiality; www.ptly.com; Brad Phillips; [email protected]

• Purple Vision; www.purple-vision.com; Keith Collins; 0845 458 0250

• Raiser’s Edge/Raiser’s Edge i and Net Community (Blackbaud); www.blackbaud.co.uk;

[email protected]

• ThankQ; www.thankq.co.uk; [email protected]