We want to get into contact with our supporters, involve them more and support them better. Both financially and non-financially. With a nice English term: customer intimacy. Not the standard solution, but tailor-made for our donors. This is also very important to guarantee our own financial future.

In addition, it is also important that we have control over our systems ourselves, that we are less dependent on external parties. More autonomy in our own hands.

The moment of choice for a new CRM was before I joined Amnesty. There was already some kind of database program that had been there for a long time. However, Amnesty wanted a better CRM, a real CRM. We researched off the shelf Salesforce and CiviCRM and finally opted for CiviCRM. Open source software, community developed, we made a conscious choice. Perhaps also because we thought it would be cheaper.

Chaos, chaos, chaos, clarity, chaos, clarity. It was an unstructured project. Key users were indicated, we sat down with the large group. It was a democratic, organic and chaotic group process. Occasionally a consultant came in to help us. The theory of change was used to set objectives at different levels.
The self-learning process was fun. Seeing people grow while you’re busy is encouraging. More (own) responsibility, the resistance that is there is a bit softer. Learning by experimenting together. Difficult is that there is not always clear guidance, and that it is also difficult to control costs.

All in all, there is a lot of user involvement. It’s not THE system, it’s OUR system!

Currently, we use CiviCRM to record data of supporters and manage relationships. We also use CiviBanking and CiviSepa to record and manage our donations.
In the near future we expect to automate our workflow more with CiviRules. In addition, it remains a point of attention to keep our database tidy. Our database is quite polluted because we sometimes made awkward decisions during the migration due to a lack of knowledge.

With fundraising we expect to be able to use automated journeys, allowing us to respond to current events and approach our supporters in an appropriate way. CiviCRM will certainly support us in this.

CiviCRM gives us the structure and the foundation to be able to execute our work effectively. It is our framework.

A lot! Asking critical questions, clarifying things. Removed chaos. CiviCooP delivers powerful hands on support. Technical programming, support with programming, acting as an intermediary towards the CiviCRM community. Coordinating where several developers from the CiviCRM community work together. CiviCooP is honest, straightforward, no nonsense. They honostly say what it is about, do what they say and explain what they do. My personal experience was with a supplier, where CiviCooP wants to be much more of a partner. You have taken me well into the community thinking, you are clearly not a supplier, we have a very different relationship. We are buddies. Good support, short on the ball, quick and adequate response. In short, here speaks a satisfied partner! Katrin Derboven, Amnesty International Flanders, 10/09/2015