How can a non-profit use CRM to drive both fundraising and the fulfillment of its mission?

With a CRM system that is tightly integrated into its public-facing media platform, The Texas Tribune has a unique and powerful tool for understanding customer preferences. The timeliness and value of the information this system provides allows the Trib to deliver its mission more efficiently, complete its fundraising activities more effectively, and manage its growing back office accounting activities without adding staff.

Here’s How They Did It

The Texas Tribune — a non-profit, non-partisan media organization has a mission of promoting civic engagement and discourse on public policy, politics, government, and other matters of statewide concern in Texas.

Building the infrastructure to support a high volume publishing platform (23 million page views in 2010) and associated Customer Relationship Management system was a huge challenge. A strong team of in-house technologists tackled the design and construction of the publishing platform while Epicom focused on integrating a CRM “back-end” system to support fundraising, communication, and other aspects of mission delivery.

The Path to Success

Epicom was retained to work with technical, development, and executive management to craft a vision for what the system would do and to develop a high-level architectural design of the system.

We worked closely with the Texas Tribune to evaluate commercial CRM alternatives. Ultimately SugarCRM was chosen because it was uniquely suited to integrate tightly with the Tribune’s Django-based publishing platform.

Within 90 days Epicom rolled-out the first phase of the Tribune CRM system. It featured:

• Tight integration with the public-facing Tribune website.
• Support for fundraising activities and event management.
• Customized relationship tracking.
• Email marketing.

Subsequent Enhancements

• Simplified data entry.
• Staff training and support.

Success Factors

• Close, open communication with Texas Tribune management.
• Careful evaluation of system design before development.
• Respect for the budget.

To learn the details of the development and critical success factors, download the full case study to the right.

Would you like to know how a mission-critical CRM solution like Texas Tribune’s can help you better manage your non-profit or for-profit organization?  Contact Epicom and we’ll show you how.