4 steps fundraising teams should take before upgrading CRM systems

• Upgrading a client relationship management (CRM) system is more than a tech project; it’s a strategic transformation requiring alignment across leadership, data, and systems to support sustainable fundraising growth.
• Prepare by securing institutional buy-in, auditing data, assessing current technologies, and prioritizing usability through stakeholder engagement and change management.
• A well-prepared CRM upgrade enhances data quality, streamlines operations, improves user adoption, and positions your organization for more effective and personalized donor engagement.

Becoming data-driven demands strong infrastructure, technology, people, and processes. A CRM system is central to this framework, offering a foundation for automation, personalization, and strategic reporting.

If your organization is considering a CRM upgrade, preparation is everything. These four steps will help ensure your conversion supports fundraising and engagement growth, not just technical change.

Effective CRM planning starts with institutional alignment across all advancement disciplines. Advancement, fundraising, and IT leadership must align on goals, roles, expectations, and the resources required for a successful conversion to a modern technology platform and business processes. Think of this as an institutionwide investment in strategic transformation of the operating model in addition to a technology upgrade. Key actions:

• Assign executive sponsors to drive key decision making and support change readiness.
• Define how the new system supports organizational goals and capability improvements.
• Assess the organization’s understanding and readiness for business and technology change.
• Engage IT, business leaders, and subject matter experts early to guide product evaluations and implementation.
• Involve advancement services to lead a business requirements and technical needs assessment in coordination with subject matter experts.

The project team must conduct a comprehensive evaluation of business processes and requirements, including gift administration, prospect management, biographical data management, donor relations and stewardship, event management, and others. The evaluation should identify opportunities to simplify and streamline operations, clarify roles and responsibilities, eliminate redundancies, and lay the groundwork for business process transformation and improved performance following the system conversion.

Successful leadership alignment and support will ensure sustained advocacy, adequate resourcing, and unified communication across departments. CRM conversions are complex and need a coalition of support from the top down and across the organization.

Reliable, trusted, and well-governed data is critical for a successful CRM upgrade. Assess:

• Whether your policies support standardized, timely, data updates, and dependable reporting
• Where your data may be incomplete, duplicative, or outdated
• How your current data aligns with defined classification structures

Conducting a data audit is a critical first step. Assign a cross-functional team or task force to:

• Map current data fields to new CRM requirements.
• Create a data cleanup plan with clear data owners and timelines.
• Identify and de-duplicate records.
• Validate high-priority data (e.g., contact info, giving history, event attendance).

Documenting data policies, validating existing tables, and forming a cross-functional data governance group helps build trust and readiness. Do not underestimate the need for internal stakeholders to have confidence in your data. It is foundational to user adoption and long-term success.

If your institution does not yet have a data governance committee supporting policies and approach, now is the time to establish one. Include stakeholders across the enterprise, including advancement services, finance, academic leadership, IT, and user groups. Their collective input will help set standards that increase confidence in reporting and business intelligence tools.

A CRM is part of a larger tech ecosystem. Conduct a technical assessment to:

• Clarify your must-have and nice-to-have capabilities.
• Understand integration points and data-sharing needs.
• Identify where current tools fall short.
• Assess vendor flexibility, scalability, and support models.

Document your current system and application architecture and highlight known challenges like batch processing limitations, reporting inefficiencies, or user challenges. This documentation should guide conversations with prospective vendors.

In most institutions, advancement teams rely on multiple disconnected platforms: donor management tools, marketing automation, event platforms, giving portals, and more. CRM replacement is a chance to realign these tools into a more cohesive application architecture.

Partner closely with IT to evaluate APIs, data flow diagrams, and middleware requirements. Ask vendors about their product road maps, update cycles, and security standards. Modern CRM platforms must accommodate integrations and align with your institutional data strategy.

Usability is as important as functionality. Staff will expect data to be easier to access. Plan to proactively:

• Gather examples of staff functional needs across roles.
• Build user stories or use cases to clarify system design requirements.
• Involve technical teams in discussions related to reporting and analytics.
• Define business-critical reports that must be supported from day one.

User adoption depends on how intuitive the new system feels. Engage end users early, include them in demo evaluations, and collect feedback on which features are and are not intuitive.

Use role-based personas to plan permissions and user experiences. What should a gift officer see upon logging in? What does a finance liaison or donor relations team member need to track? Mapping these journeys can help you select the right platform and design the best workflows.

As part of change management, provide clear onboarding plans, training toolkits, and help desk support. Consider building a “CRM champions” network to serve as peer resources within departments. These individuals can model best practices and provide on-the-ground support during and after implementation.

Do not just upgrade. Transform.

A CRM upgrade is a chance to reimagine how your organization manages relationships and data. It’sIt is more than just a system change. It is a strategic moment to unify your approach to donor engagement, data quality, and operational efficiency. More importantly, it is an opportunity to strengthen your foundation for meaningful engagement and sustained fundraising growth.