Donor Cultivation Tracking Software Results

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Thanks to everyone who submitted a response to last week’s survey on the pros and cons of donor cultivation tracking software. The results were interesting in that they were weighted in the opposite direction from what I tend to hear from development professionals when talking to them.

Do you use donor cultivation tracking software that is part of your organization’s CRM (Customer Relationship Management platform)?

Respondents that indicated they didn’t use a solution integrated with their CRM all used stand alone donor cultivation app/software. No one indicated using spreadsheet (yay!)

How satisfied are you with features provided by your CRM based solution?

By and large, users were a mix of satisfied and not. Interestingly enough,no one indicated being “very satisfied.”

This was a small enough sample size (36) it doesn’t represent a broad enough cross section to draw any meaningful conclusions. Having said that, it would be fascinating to see a larger sample to see what ratio of development pros are starting to consider options outside their CRM and why.

It would be equally fascinating to see what pros with 20+ years’ experience thinks of their CRM based options and if they’ve evolved at a reasonable rate to keep pace with demand. I’m also curious to take a deeper dive into why a third of respondents really seem to hate their current solution.

About Drew McManus

"I hear that every time you show up to work with an orchestra, people get fired." Those were the first words out of an executive's mouth after her board chair introduced us. That executive is now a dear colleague and friend but the day that consulting contract began with her orchestra, she was convinced I was a hatchet-man brought in by the board to clean house.

I understand where the trepidation comes from as a great deal of my consulting and technology provider work for arts organizations involves due diligence, separating fact from fiction, interpreting spin, as well as performance review and oversight. So yes, sometimes that work results in one or two individuals "aggressively embracing career change" but far more often than not, it reinforces and clarifies exactly what works and why.

In short, it doesn't matter if you know where all the bodies are buried if you can't keep your own clients out of the ground, and I'm fortunate enough to say that for more than 15 years, I've done exactly that for groups of all budget size from Qatar to Kathmandu.

For fun, I write a daily blog about the orchestra business, provide a platform for arts insiders to speak their mind, keep track of what people in this business get paid, help write a satirical cartoon about orchestra life, hack the arts, and love a good coffee drink.

View all posts by Drew McManus | Website

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