Silo Busters: Unifying Data for More Impactful Fundraising

Departmental silos within nonprofit organizations are an ongoing issue, and it’s easy to see why they happen. With federal funding cuts, more causes competing for donors, and economic strain on disposable income, reaching big fundraising goals can feel like an uphill battle. It’s easy to become hyper-focused on completing the next task on an endless to-do list without taking a moment to consider how your work may be impacting others, and vice versa.

Of course, there’s a cost to working in isolation. Without proactive intervention, departmental silos naturally develop. And while they may form unintentionally, those silos act as barriers that block the flow of information, preventing a unified understanding of donor relationships and organizational goals. This isolation leads to communication breakdowns, strategic misalignment, and limited innovation.

Departmental Silos Lead to Data Silos

When departments are working in isolation, their data often does too. Donor data lives in a range of different systems—from CRM platforms to email marketing tools, event registration software, finance databases, and even Excel spreadsheets.

When data isn’t shared effectively, we struggle to gain a holistic view of our supporters, hindering personalized engagement and data-driven decision making. We miss the chance to personalize our interactions and tailor our approach based on a complete understanding of donor history and interests.

Conversely, a unified view empowers us to communicate more effectively, strengthen donor loyalty, and maximize the lifetime value of every relationship.

Breaking Down Data Silos – the Technology Roadmap

Breaking down data silos is key to unlocking your organization’s fundraising potential. Because data silos are often symptoms of broader organizational silos, it’s important to start with implementing a strategy that unifies the people in an organization. That can include:

• Establishing clear, shared goals and metrics: This ensures that all departments are working towards common objectives, creating alignment and clarity around shared priorities.
• Implementing cross-functional working or project teams: This breaks down silos by bringing together individuals from different departments to work on common initiatives, promoting communication and knowledge exchange.
• Developing organization-wide donor personas and journeys: This creates a shared understanding of your donors across the organization, ensuring that everyone is working with the same information and perspective.

Once people are aligned, the data work comes next. Your systems and data must support cross-departmental collaboration and a 360-degree view of your patrons. A helpful framework to use when breaking down data silos is the Data Ecosystem—which illustrates how people, data, and technology work together as a coordinated system to drive organizational goals. Your goal should be for your data ecosystem to work across the organization in perfect harmony to support your mission.

How do you get to a harmonious data ecosystem? A technology roadmap will help you chart the path to a healthy data ecosystem. The technology roadmap is an overarching plan for what technology and processes your organization will need to support its strategic goals, and how to get there. The plan outlines changes in manageable steps, considering operational and budget constraints. Each step is listed on a timeline, noting dependencies and changes to business processes that would need to happen alongside system changes.

Similar to a map for a road trip, a technology roadmap to shows routes to travel from “here” to “there”—from your current state to a stronger, more integrated future. Thus, the first step in creating a roadmap is assessing where you are now. This often includes a visual model illustrating the current state of your systems, including their use across departments and the disparate nature of their use for collecting constituent information.

The second step is creating a clear vision of where you want to go. This will define what your ideal end-state will look like, potentially including new technologies, processes, systems, and integrations. Your technology roadmap then connects the dots, outlining clear steps from “here” to “there” in manageable phases.

Silo Demolition in Action – Chicago Humanities

After the COVID-19 pandemic, Chicago Humanities—an organization dedicated to celebrating the rich ideas of the humanities in the context of civic life—found itself in a highly siloed situation, with 16 systems supporting its business functions. The swift change from in-person to remote operations during the pandemic led to the adoption of many new technologies in a reactive, “build-the-plane-while-flying” way. Staff acquired software they needed to get their jobs done, but the organization didn’t have an overarching strategy for its technology.

Recognizing the need for unified systems and streamlined operations, Chicago Humanities partnered with JCA to break down silos and create a cohesive data ecosystem. Here’s how we did it:

• Discovering the “Here” – To understand the Chicago Humanities current state, we conducted discovery sessions to understand each departments’ needs and business processes, as well as their pain points and areas for improvement.
• Envisioning the “There” – Next, we had to discern the optimal technology state at Chicago Humanities. To do this we conducted a Needs Assessment, which confirmed that Chicago Humanities needed a new fundraising CRM. We provided the team with goals, objectives, and requirements for a new CRM system, observations and recommendations for other system changes, and improvements to business processes.
• Creating the Technology Roadmap – With recommendations to upgrade or replace multiple systems, the next step was a plan for implementation. We delivered a roadmap with a 5-year plan to Chicago Humanities to get to its new, optimal, data ecosystem.

With a roadmap in hand and a robust data ecosystem in sight, Chicago Humanities is on track to gain a clear picture of its audience, better engage supporters, and carry forward the dream that began in 1989. Since delivering the roadmap, Chicago Humanities has selected Tessitura, and we’re now partnering with them on the next step: CRM implementation, which we are starting this month!

Start Charting Your Way to Open Fields

You can learn more about developing a Technology Roadmap here, or talk to one of our expert consultants. JCA’s Technology Roadmap Services provide a clear path forward to a healthy data ecosystem for effective fundraising. Ready to see what’s possible?