Innovator Spotlight: All Hands Volunteers

Congrats again to All Hands Volunteers who recently received an Innovator Award for the Best CRM Visionary/Use of Common Ground. The organization is a volunteer-staffed nonprofit that’s dedicated to timely disaster response and relief assistance. Historically, like many nonprofits, All Hands Volunteers had siloed data, with volunteer data and donor data housed in three different systems. This made it extremely difficult to personalize and tailor communications to each individual. As the organization grew, the need for consolidation and proper segmenting became more imperative… enter Common Ground.

Since consolidating their data into Convio Common Ground, All Hands Volunteers has developed more effective communications. They’ve created multiple fundraising and email campaigns that are personalized for specific segments of their housefile. These personal communications have paid off too, allowing All Hands Volunteers to build, maintain, and strengthen relationships with their constituents. Common Ground has played an important part in growing the organization’s operating budget from $500,000 in 2009 to $2.7 million in 2011.

In addition to their great success with Common Ground, All Hands Volunteers has also adopted Common Ground Social which is an integrated social fundraising solution. Common Ground Social allows All Hands Volunteers constituents to create and share personalized fundraising pages through different social networks (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn). Fundraising activities are then seamlessly captured into the consolidated Common Ground database for All Hands Volunteers, allowing for even deeper segmentation.

Hats off to you, All Hands Volunteers, for leading the way with targeted communications and social integration.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lacey Kruger

Lacey Kruger, principal information architect for Blackbaud, designs online properties for nonprofits that delight and inspire. Whether a full scale website, a campaign site or a peer to peer fundraising site, Lacey guides clients through a research-based and user-centered approach to design. In her 15+ years at Blackbaud, she has developed a deep understanding of nonprofit web presences. That knowledge, along with her years of experience in information design, have established her as an industry expert.

Lacey has written a Blackbaud eBook, “A Guide to the Nonprofit Web Design Process” and her article, “Designing Nonprofit Experiences: Building a UX Toolkit” was published in User Experience magazine. She has presented at industry conferences including bbcon, IA Summit and BIG Design.