Charities plan CRM overhaul as data crackdown looms

Nearly 40% of charities are planning to review their CRM systems amid fears that they will fail to comply with both the demands of the Fundraising Preference Service – pencilled in for launch this summer – and GDPR in May 2018.
The move will not doubt have CRM suppliers and consultants licking their lips in anticipation of new business, even though charities are not exactly known for their deep pockets.
According to data released as part of Fundraising Magazine’s 2017 CRM survey, 38% of respondents said they were planning on reviewing their CRM system, with a many saying they were “not at all”, or only “a little bit” confident that their existing CRM system would allow them to be complaint with the FPS.
Blackbaud Europe director of customer engagement Rob Gethen Smith told Fundraising Magazine that GDPR, set to come into force in the UK from May 2018, would far outweigh the FPS in significance for fundraising charities.
“The FPS is a new channel for the public to communicate with charities and our role is to help the flow of information from FPS into their database and make it as easy as possible. GDPR however will demand a higher level of granularity and auditability.”
Ivan Wainewright, an independent CRM consultant, said that GDPR “will force charities to record compliance at a granular level, and systems will therefore need to be able to manage that”.

TOPICS:charities. fundraising CRM