Customer Relationship Management Software

The Vendor is required to provide Customer Relationship Management (CRM) providers with demonstrated experience supporting mid- to large-scale nonprofit organizations.
- Deep expertise in the best-practice application of CRM systems to improve operational efficiency, enhance data quality, enable KPI tracking, and support effective donor segmentation.
- Solution must also support core business processes, including seamless integration with the Agency’s accounting, event, and volunteer management systems.
- Solutions should leverage industry best practices in artificial intelligence and clearly articulate how AI capabilities will be used responsibly, securely, and transparently in support of Department
- Must include a clearly defined governance framework addressing data privacy, security, and compliance. Emphasis should be placed on practical, user-centric use cases— such as predictive insights, intelligent automation, and decision support— that measurably improve donor management effectiveness and fundraising outcomes.
- Solution to include:
•    A SaaS-based platform
•    A broad range of standard functionality tailored to fundraising, marketing, and development operations
•    Robust automation capabilities
•    AI-driven features to automate KPI tracking and analyze donor engagement patterns through dashboards and reports
•    Open APIs and easy integration with existing systems, specifically, The chosen system will provide a seamless transfer of all gift funds data to the Agency’s finance system-
•    A modern, intuitive user interface that enables high-level data management and performance tracking via dashboards
•    Integrated email tool to support outreach, promotional campaigns, and data hygiene
•    Easy staff access to comprehensive donor engagement and giving history
- A CRM system should manage and continuously strengthen relationships and communications with existing and prospective donors.
- This includes the automated management of donor information, payment methods, and contribution history. 
- The overarching objective is to increase donor loyalty and lifetime value.
- The system should enable the delivery of the right message to the right donor through the right channel, at the right time. 
- The CRM must serve as a centralized repository for donor data and historical interactions, aggregating information from multiple communication channels. 
- It should provide extensive automation to minimize manual effort and enable users to generate reports on donors and revenue, both within the system and through data exports.
- Comprehensive Constituent Data Management: A solution that captures and maintains a complete constituent profile, including but not limited to giving history, interests, communication preferences (online and offline), email and postal addresses, contact history, prospect research, volunteer engagement, and—ideally—social media engagement.
- Unified Access and 360-Degree Constituent View: A solution that makes constituent data easily accessible to finance, marketing, fundraising, and development staff within a single system. All engagement activities— including volunteer participation, donation history, and communications— must be recorded within each constituent record to enable a true 360-degree view and support improved donor acquisition, stewardship, and retention.
- Exceptional Constituent and Donor Experience: A solution that enables or lays the foundation for an excellent constituent and donor experience across both offline and online channels, including direct mail, email communications, online giving, e-commerce.
- Segmented Digital Marketing Enablement: A solution that supports the implementation and execution of a segmented digital marketing strategy by centralizing email addresses, email marketing opt-ins, interest areas, preferred communication methods, and giving history within a single, integrated system.
- Seamless System Integration: A solution that is either a single, fully integrated platform or a suite of tightly integrated systems that function as one, minimizing data fragmentation and preventing data integrity issues caused by push/pull processes between multiple databases.
- Data Privacy and Regulatory Compliance: A solution that protects donor privacy and confidentiality when collecting and storing constituent provided information (e.g., email addresses), and that complies with all applicable national data protection and privacy laws.
- Finance and Fundraising Data Alignment: A solution that enables easy and seamless reconciliation and alignment of data managed by accounting/finance teams with fundraising and grant development operations.
- Email Marketing and Branding Capabilities: A solution that includes an integrated email marketing tool with advanced customization, segmentation, automation, and branding capabilities to support consistent and effective communications.
- System Requirements:
•    Be secure, stable, and scalable, offering robust features and functionality.
•    Include, at a minimum, Live and Test environments; Live, Test, and Development environments are preferred.
•    Incorporate modern technologies, including the latest artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities.
•    Provide intuitive, efficient, and role-appropriate user experiences for all constituent groups.
•    Be fully web-accessible across all devices and browsers, with responsive design.
•    Include powerful, flexible, web-based reporting, dashboards, and decision support tools.
•    Be user-friendly and easy to use, administer, and maintain, with comprehensive training and documentation.
•    Support bi-directional integration with third-party software, ensuring flexibility, data integrity, audit trails, and appropriate controls.
•    Enable best practices and self-service functionality for all constituents.
•    Deliver a real-time, device-agnostic user experience accessible from any location.
•    Be configurable to meet the unique needs of individual departments.
•    Support effective dating and active/inactive status indicators.
•    Provide user-definable workflow capabilities.
•    Allow for flexible data import and export to and from third-party systems
•    Generate system log files that can be accessed and disseminated, where applicable (may not be required for fully cloud-based solutions).
- Individuals/Organization/Foundation Specifications:
•    The system provides the capability to store multiple categorized contact data elements (e.g., residence/employment addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, etc.).
•    The system provides the capability to designate an individual to a specific category within a donor matrix based on specific criteria.
•    The system provides the capability to API volunteer information from third-party software (Samaritan).
•    The system has the ability for users to create unlimited number of document templates in word format using contributions or donor-specific merge fields.
•    The system enables staff to establish system parameters for linking the appropriate documents to specific transactions
•    The system provides the capability to store unlimited and categorized relationships: person-to- person, person to external organization, person to agency business area (e.g., as a volunteer or event attendee).
•    The system provides the capability to enable donor(s) access to the system to make contact/relationship changes.
•    The system has the ability for staff to track interactions with individual(s)/organization(s) and add comments to records
•    The system has the capability to integrate with the agency’s client management system (Exponent Partners on the Salesforce platform) thereby allowing for the seamless transition from current client to donor.
•    The system has the capability to illustrate an individual’s/organization’s relationship history, their gift giving, notes and activities throughout their relationship with Agency.
•    The system provides the ability to create a relationship between an individual and an organization independently.
•    The system has the capability to be specific about the type of relationship between the individual and the organization.
•    The system provides the capability to populate full employment information, including specific business contact information and position title, for as many organization relationships that might exist.
•    The system has the capability to grant selected staff members access to individual and organization records in all relevant modules.
- Principal / Major Donor Specifications:
•    The system can create bespoke engagement plans
•    The system can capture when donors are qualified/unqualified, and this information be captured in reports.
•    The system has the capability to view the portfolio of prospects in a ‘meaningful’ way (i.e., to view a continually updated profile for each prospect).
•    The system allows for the customization of dashboards by individual users.
•    The system has the capability to provide users with a dashboard view of each prospect’s relationship life cycle with the Agency.
•    Engagement with campaign leadership and volunteers
•    The system provides the capability to automatically assign the next step, when management moves status for a prospect, when the move is based on a new transaction being processed or a contact report being recorded as closed.
•    The system can create automatic alerts to notify the primary solicitor when any actions or changes to a prospect record occur in the system.
•    The system has the capability to track the history of solicitor assignments by dates and roles.
•    The system has the ability for users to see a family-tree-like display of prospective connections throughout the Agency.
•    The system can track proposals, letters of intent, gifts, and additional documentation.
•    The system allows documents to be stored and accessed directly in the proposed solution.
•    The systems can track progress towards each major, giving an annual goal.
•    The system has the capability to record and track progress of each step required to secure a planned giving.
•    The system can track how gifts came in (check, online, text, etc.)
•    The system can track which campaign the gifts came in as part of.
•    The system allows for automatic generation and tracking of correspondence before and after a donation.
•    The system allows for confirmation of purchase, to track the level of activity.
•    The system allows automatic generation of tax letters at the end of the year for a full year’s amount of donation.
•    The system allows for monthly donations (recurring donations) to happen automatically with an exception report if needed.
•    The system can manage multiple campaigns at any given time.
•    The system has the capability to make demographic changes in an efficient, seamless fashion during contribution entry.
- Gift Recording Specifications:
•    The system should have the capability to track progress to goal on a dashboard 
•    The system should have the capability to integrate with the financial system to track new gifts and pledges, and potentially Cash (when the money arrives), and potentially Contributions (when the money is released)
•    The system could potentially integrate with dispersement sites (DAFs) 
•    The system should have the capability to store/house all gift documentation and correspondence from the donor
•    The system should have the capability to record multi-year private gifts and grants
•    The system has the capability to create all contribution types: gifts, pledges, pledge payments, recurring donations, and actualized gifts.
•    The system has the capability to track pledges and gifts anonymously either by transaction, the person or the entire record being anonymous while maintaining the ability to create tax receipts.
•    The system has the capability to format donors’ names differently based on their gift that could be different depending on the type of campaign.
•    The system has the capability to split any contribution type among multiple donors, designations/funds, payment methods, and/or campaigns.
•    The system has the capability to define unique payment schedules for pledges.
•    The system has the capability to assign multiple solicitors to each contribution type.
- Marketing & Communication
•    The system allows the utilization of social media tools like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. before, after and during fundraising activities.
•    The system provides the capability to edit, print, and/or save the resulting word documents.
•    The system could track activities such as direct mail campaigns, email campaigns, events, and other types of activities.
•    The system can track appeals.
•    The system can segment groups into reporting and communication criteria.
•    The system could create customized letters/communications and have they automatically trigger at multiple points (e.g., a check-in 4-5 days after donation, official follow-up letter, 1-year anniversary letter, etc.).
•    The system can send and track communications to/from individuals (e.g., letters, emails, texts, etc. that were sent).
•    The system could invite donors that the Agency has established relationships with, to events sponsored/organized by the Agency.