How Client Relationship Management Can Be Used in a Not-for-Profit Setting - Research Paper Example

How Client Relationship Management can be used in a not-for-profit setting Introduction Not-for-profit organizations become increasingly declining day in day out. This has been caused by the poor methods of management and lack of identification of the ways they can be boosted. Customer relationship management covers all features of the organization’s connection amid its donors (Staelin, 2005). Almost every where in the globe, not-for-profit organizations do realize that they should manage donor association as well as improve connections that integrate the various activities set to aid in the achievement of this. Mostly, steps are being taken in the implementation of Customer Relationship Management and this aims to permit them to comprehend better the behaviors of the consumers and give focus to the resources are mostly preferred by donors and donors (Butte, 1999). Among the questions answered is; how can CRM be used in a not-for-profit setting such as charitable fund-raising? The need for research will be helpful in evaluation of stress situations, for example the failure of new projects in an organization, the sudden emergence of a strong, competitive situation or the collapse of the project. The continuing need for research is, however, better seen against the environment in which the organization operates and its corporative objectives if these are formally or not (Christopher 1999). Because most of the charitable organizations are in one or more of these situations, it is apparent that there is always a use if not a need for doing the research. The research and case study was carried in one organization called Orphans Home. The organization do collects street children and home them. Some of the orphans and some they get from the relatives who bring them after the death of their parents. This has enhanced its growth since it was formed. The other factor that might have led to the increments in the number of orphans is the good care that they get. They are taken to school and provided with the necessities in Home. Objectives of the research Orphans Home has been chosen and the objective is to give elastration of utility of services blueprinting while highlighting difficulties that are likely to be experienced in the management of fundraising quality services (Dibb, 2001). The aim of the research is to examine the implications for not-for-profit of donation management and exchange that uses CRM (Customer Relationship Management). The research was cried out in one of not-for-profit organization in called Orphans Home. It is also to give identity of the possible ways on improving the services of its donors and identification of the issues that are making the management process being more technical than they should be in a non profit organizations more so Orphans Home (Feinberg, 2002). The reality that there exist many concurrent interactions indicates that difficulty may arise in the separation of donations processes from other organizational activities like agitation and membership. The research and case study also takes deeper look into the services utility blueprinting in helping the management of such complexity. All the research objectives were scrutinized to guarantee that not only it is feasible, but that it accords with the total corporate plans of the organization (Gebert, 2003). We have worked in the constraints that the organization is bound and our suggestions are within what the organization can pay for or put in place and so our research and case study. The research examines the possible activities that it can engage in to better its services to the orphans and public at large (Staelin, 2005). Orphans Home was started in 1986 by two Australia men called Justus and Joseph and by now has about 500 orphans. These orphans are catered for by the well swisher and the donors. It is through the mercies of these donors that the organization runs. Hypothesis a) Programs and projects initiated by CRM do always succeed. b) There exist good relationships between managers and donors in non profit organizations that are beneficial. Literature review CRM has aided in the enhancement of the relationship that exist between the organization and the donors and well wishers. Customer Relationship has had numerous definitions varies depending on the focus and objective, but in literature review and in the context of Orphans Home, it is being observed it as the ‘plan and form of process this is set up in maintaining and developing associations with orphans, organization and donors that are profitable. However, a different argument is brought by Marjot, 2001 that Customer Relationship Management refers to the combination of plans and the system of information that are meant in attention focusing on donors so that they can be provided with better services. This can also be applicable in this case but have less impact as the first (Guunros, 1997). In Marjot’s view, Customer Relationship Management is attained by thorough organization, alignment, and the integration of the processes not-for-profit organizations. This is done in order to provide the created value fully for all donors, especially the ones that are of higher worth (Marjot, 2001). Customer Relationship Management can hence not be taken as a mere technology, though it leans against technology for the implementations of its services (Iyer, 2003). In business, it is evident that active management of Customer Relationship Management yields both long term and short term profits. It dawns to various firms and organizations (non profit included) that donors are assets that require nurturing and needs to be developed. Customer Relationship Management develops understanding of characteristics donors’ and the history characters and employs information systems to path and foresees their coming characters (Kenyon, 2001). Managers require a new approach to certain that the donors are contented and this is enhanced by the employees who are to make it take place. In the organization, the new approach can be made by its supports and well wishers. Well established CRM is essential in this organization. It indicates how the organization is being run and satisfying the people concerned. The donors are taken as customers in this context. They are the people that are targeted (Kim, 2002). There are plentiful ways of establishing donor oriented culture for relationship marketing in a consumer environment. First, managers should model their expectations. Suppose one requires that the culture of his company or organization to change, he should start from the top most down to the newly recruited employees. Focus should be on the way of creating a donors’ culture that is focused in the organization. The priorities of the donors should also be known (Henneberg, 2003). Their requirements should be evident. This will provide better comprehension of the donors/orphans and their requirements. For achievement in businesses and for good organizations, there must be good relationships that exist between it and the esteem donors. Customer Relationship Management should comprehend the donors. It should talks well with target audiences (that might turn to be donors or well wishers) as it aids in building of relationships that lasts and creation of worth for the two or more parties involved. The organization is mainly run through fund raising. In raising the funds Customer Relationship Management ensures that donors have a better relationship with not-for-profit organization as this is essential for the development and maintenance of progressing donations (Granros, 1994). The other possible key tenant of Customer Relationship Management is the retention of donors. All possible things should be done to certain that the recent donors are retained. The new donors should as well be captured. As Mark 2007 puts it that to retain the recent client is cheaper as getting new ones is ten times additional costly than when you retain the recent donors. The retention will if in building everlasting relationships and this is worth a fortune. The other principle should be good services delivery and taking its measurements there after. Critical achievement aspects are very important in any given organization. They give room for the organizations to center their labors on the building of their capabilities in meeting them. There are numerous critical achievement aspects but grouped in 4 major ones. Organizational critical achievement factors (CSF) results from the characteristics of the organization. It is organizational based and it is the activities in the organization that affects it (Gummes, 2007). This is because all the organizations have specific objectives and goals. The best example here is de-merger. Strategic critical achievement aspects (factors) consequences from the selected policies of the business that is aggressive. Environmental CSF’s are from the financial or technological factors. These factors, the organization cannot have control over them but should be taken into thought in the development of its CSF. Lastly, temporal critical achievement factors results from the internal requirements of the organization and the variance that are accompanied by the changes. These are factors that are not permanent in the organization (Coviello, 2002). To take a good example here, an organization assertively building its business in the international markets would require a need an assembly of managers in the latest markets. And so it could have critical achievement factors of ‘constructing the executive group in a given market’ and this could appear each year in the construction of new markets. All these CSF’s should have magnitude and should be linked with a given objective. A few big business-to-consumer unions with many express donors have produced a number of the most excellent profits from client relationship strategies. They focus on requirements of donors rather than needs of the union, these unions benefit from important raise in revenues, and this enables them to benefit from healthy paybacks. (B2B) organizations do have fewer donors and lesser ranges of the products. Nevertheless, business-to-consumer principles of Customer Relationship Management can be productively practiced in a B2B surrounding, with similar fulfilling returns on assets. And the assets are donors. Customer Relationship Management policies and implementation model employed ‘interaction research’ then joint interactions based on the field, that involves the decision-making assemblies. They have imminent from the literature to recognize 4 key areas that need implementation. This leads to Loyalty of Donor and good Relationship in Marketing through donor giving to Not -for-Profit organizations. The components are to be included into the initial preliminary model. This first model, and expansion of additional of its versions, was informed and than sophisticated by relations with the administrative group. The framework went through numerous iterations and some slight revisions were made. It has 2 major components: 4 key Customer Relationship Management elements of implementation and 5 cross-functional processes of CRM (Gummes, 2007). CRM is be affected by many dissimilar kinds of cycles. These comprise macro cycles like financial and production cycles, and also specific cycles of the company like inventory and budget cycles. Customer Relationship Management schemes is able to be a necessary tool for efficiently following and running these varied cycles. One of the clear dissimilarity that exists between business-to-business and business-to-client is the requirement of the client. Business-to-business centers on personal transactions of the client, but business-to-client focuses on businesses like the donor (Gummes, 2007). Various requirements are created by this difference for applications of business-to-business. Another distinction between business-to-business and business-to-client is order type. For instance, when one makes an order of supplies of office or parts, he/she normally makes an order of similar products and equal quantities at repeated intervals. Standing orders are common to requirements of business-to-business. Payment type is yet another requirement different for transactions of B2B (Gebert, 2003). When an organization purchases, for payment it hardly ever make use of credit card. More possibly, it will have forms of payment that are varied like credit and open orders lines. Applications of business-to-business are premeditated with these necessities in consideration. The other variation is kind of search role in applications of business-to-business (Staelin, 2005). Finally, the connection type between business-to-business and business-to-client varies. When one is getting linked to B2B in an application in making purchase, he/she is usually relating to single partner or a number of partners who are trusted. The reason for Customer Relationship Management is to professionally and successfully boost acquisition, enlargement and maintenance of gainful donors by selectively starting, construction and maintaining suitable associations with them. An expansion in information technology assists in improvement of client relationships and makes it achievable to collect huge sums of client data and to make analysis, make interpretations and its constructive utilization. Nevertheless, there often exists a gap amid Donor Relationship Management of dreams of organizations and the results that they attain and so the research identifies them (Gebert, 2003). Customer Relationship Management is concerned with the creation and improvements of worth of shareholder by the use of donor centric business procedures and to develop suitable relations with donors. It necessitates an incorporation resources of the organization; public, business and marketing ability to bring out extra worth to the regulars. Customer Relationship Management is to offer firms and associations with vision of their donors and athwart irrespective of interactive canal or means by which the client get access to the products or offered services (Gummes, 2007).. Implementation and management of marketing promotions is the key in obtaining ones targets. It can be hard to decide the kinds of works efficiently and what does not. An excellent system of CRM will offer functionality to determine both the efficiency of campaigns, and the personal behaviors in campaigns. An example can be in a campaign to increase alertness of a matter one is able to connect every reaction from ones audience targeted to a given activity (Staelin, 2005). In reporting in the implementation of Customer Relationship Management, the following steps should be considered. CRM framework should be developed; recent processes of the business aligned, then fresh processes of the business should be designed wherever necessary. Technical Specifications and Functional Specifications are to be developed. It is at this point that Technical Specifications and accessible technology matched. Product configured, data integrated and migrated and then the staff is taught. This will make surer that Customer Relationship Management programs are maintained in consumer environment. For a given organization to avoid problems especially Orphans Home, and for the reduction of the risks that are as a result of the implementation of Customer Relationship Management, the below are key steps that are recommended to a thriving CRM strategies (Dibb, 2001). In the strategy context, it is work of any given organization to take consideration of how Customer Relationship Management fits into organization’s context of its overall plans of the business. The second is the assessments of the capabilities of the firm or organization. It is for the conformation of the capabilities of the firm at a given time. The third is plan implementation. This will enable the creation of the plans that will help achieve the set goals of the firm. The last is business case progress. If is not just enough to follow the fresh trends of development but to also make and execute as strategy that clearly give a definition and the ways of achieving the objectives. Research methodology During this study, several sources were used to gather information and data that was used to provide guidance to this study. For the case study a project was taken and analysis done there after. This projects for two past years. The two could bring out clearly how CRM influenced their success and the best possible solutions. They were linked to the services of CRM and this aided in the finding how Client Relationship Management can be used in a not-for-profit setting. At the initial stages, the project is initiated and the progress determined. The research and case study started when the projects were formed, implementation and their final destinies (Dibb, 2001). The satisfaction that both the organization and the donors obtained was as well determined through interview. Qualitative and quantitative methods were employed in the measurement of the utilities of the services provided by the organization. The qualitative was used in the analysis of the data of the past records on the organization and qualitative in analyzing the interview. It indicated the satisfactions that services that are delivered to consumers provide. The type of services and their implication aids in the future developments and improvements in the organization. Some of the sources were secondary sources that the former researchers had conducted research on failures in the past and how these failures can be dealt with (Gummes, 2007). Many possible secondary sources of data collection were used after they were checked for accessibility, relevance, and topicality. These were the data that had been collected previously by the organization and reported by some individuals and the past records of the organization (Granros, 2004). They provided a more important data for the study and for relation of the past and the present. The relationship between the managers and the donors were examined. The factors that lead to the escaping of donors and failures in the organization were as well looked at. The information gotten from the sources above was critically analyzed. Most of the sources that were used touched generally on impact that CRM has on both donor and orphans. The study also aided in the suggestion of the appropriate ways that should be used and the things to be implemented for the improvement of Customer - Customer relationships. They also provided information on how CRM can be used in a not-for-profit setting such as charitable fund-raising and in this case Orphans Home. Therefore, this context can form an important part in conducting further research on the ways of improving the functionality of not-for-profit organizations (Feinberg, 2002). The variables are numerous but can be simply as the components of the cost of research and both direct and indirect profits expected from the research. The figures are related to the donors and the organization. There are, however, besides the profit objectives other factors which may alone, or in combination, determine if the project should be undertaken (Granros, 2004). Clearly availability of various types of resources and the position of the project in the organization’s cost/benefit list of priorities will be two limitations. The feasibility of achieving reliable and usable results within the recent state of the art will be another. More significantly perhaps will be the commitment of management to the use of case-study research ways a reliable tool in making decisions (Dibb, 2001). The process of blueprinting needs extremely contextualized information on knowledge of donors and the views of numerous staff that are in the not-for-profit organization. This is by regard to swap of donations. Encounter analysis is purposely for exchange and is not widespread athwart various associations. A case-study methodology was tested and gotten to be appropriate. This was because it allowed a wealthy textual analysis from traverse segment of respondents that have diversity of viewpoints. It permitted the triangulation of the views, commonalities identification or the notations of differences in the various views and opinions. This made sure that the matters that were noted were investigated. Furthermore, the requirement for this type of research can be emphasized by its significance in getting information that are detailed on the entire features of the exchange of donations, necessitating way in to donors, mangers of not-for-profit and employers and employers (Staelin, 2005). Orphans Home (not-for-profit organization) aims at the assisting the orphans were looked at. According to the data that was obtained it was found out that about twenty four thousand donors that were active and eight thousand members. Some of the members dual worked and as well participated as donors. Flows of income that is from both sides i.e. by membership payment, donations and appeals, inheritance and merchandize actions were examined. All the activities, are managed internally and they operated (from the case study) with twenty seven members of the staff and they were given support by people who volunteered at the main office and also this was through a number of united assemblies. Donors were contacted and invited took part in focus assemblies. Different focus groups were held in various places and various numbers of participants. One contained eight donors. In-depth interview followed. The manager of Orphans Home was held accountable for supervision all the activities, the people accountable for functional activities that are linked to the process of donations, and a consultant engaged. The consultant was to aid development of fundraising actions for not-for-profit organization. The people who participated in the interview process and focus groups were tape recorded and then written down (Dibb, 2001). The collection of data was intended to cover numerous factors though these factors varied as they depended on if the information collected was solicited from donors or the information were specifically related to Orphans Home. All the information that was obtained from donors shored if they were and the way they were involved with not-for-profit organization (Orphans Home). It also shored the various types of exchange that were being undertaken by the donors and the involvement in every exchange. It gave a clear picture (information from donors) the way exchange operated, if difficulties existed, and indicated if there are chances of making improvements in the system. Contrary, the information obtained from the respondents was to show the way the donors were segmented or targeted, it brought a clear picture of how nature of the donations exchanges are perceived, activities of the organization that were connected to the exchanges. It also indicated if there was effective operation in the organization and the possible areas to be improved. The secondary ways provided important data as well (Granros, 2004). After the collection of data (using secondary ways), correlation ways of data analysis was used. It was used to determine the correlation that exists between two or more variables and in this case the correlation that exists between donors, donors, and the organization and Customer Relationship Management as well. It is through the analysis indicated for not the relationship existed, the extent of relationship, and reliability and thus the practicability of the relationship for the purpose of forecasting. The use of historical trends of donations also assisted as the other factors that would have affected the organizations were also revealed. Correlation ways is normally used to give identity of the trends that are in the organization. Actuarial ways was used to determine the techniques used in prediction donor experiences to the problem of donation and this assisted to arrive at the best solution. Some data was analyzed using qualitative techniques. In the whole process, the following deductions were made. Findings and interpretations It was identified by the donors that they were conversant of the organization. This awareness was through numerous activities. The activities were face to face, some were through mail and yet others through direct contact with them. The participation of the donors was clear that the in a range of exchange with Orphans Home. Most donors said that it was very difficult to give identity of the factor that boosted the first contact with the organization. However, it was identified by numerous donors that it was through the advertisement that forced and facilitated their interaction with the organization. It was identified by the staff that though there were focused communications activities that aimed fresh and retention of recent donors a shotgun ways was employed. Regarding the satisfaction that the organization and donors got, it was reported that the exchange was perfect, but some difficulties were met. The graph and the data obtained indicated the life cycle of various projects in the organization. Good relationship between the organization and donors is essential but do cease after some time. It was assumed that this takes place when the initiated programs do not pick and then donors lose interest (Iyer, 2003). The rise indicated when the perception was perfect but a fall signified loses of concentration and support of the donors. There were good relationships between managers and donors in Orphans Home. The two projects were successful initially. There was a growth curve that starts from introduction of the project to maturity and eventually reaching saturation and then declining and vanishing by and by. During the whole process, the work that Customer Relationship Management did was determined. It indicates what motivates the donors (Gummesson, 2002). Factors that achievements and failures of the project depended on could too be investigated. What they value in the organization and their intentions are the key factors that are determined in the diagram and from data analysis. It identifies the needs of various organizations and from various projects that are donor sponsored, the curve indicated a steep for the projects which are subject to forces or which are found to be unsatisfactory after an initial trial. The peak of the curve is at the top position from which maximum benefit from donors are obtained (Granros, 2004). The projects were aided by CRM. And all the projects aided succeeded. It can be assumed that at this point, there is a maximum and effective correlation that existed among donors, CRM and the donors. It then declines as the cooperation of the donors and their donations decline and after some time they donate no more and the given projects fail. From the life cycle that was obtained, it aided in the location of the best and the most convenient point and circumstance tat Donor Relation Management can chip in or improve. ‘Management’ job is too decide what needs to be done, to specify what is to be done, who is to do it, to see that it gets done and to evaluate how ell it was done. Business operations run on facts and the effectiveness with which these are carried out depends on the intelligence and purposeful use of the reporting process, which, in turn, determines. Customer Relationship Management is essentials in every non profit organization. It aids both the organizations and the donors as well. According to our hypothesis, it is not true that all the programs that are initiated by CRM do succeed. The first one succeeded but the next did not. The programs are as well dependent on other factors and evident that not only CRM and donors that affect them. It point out by the increase in graph and then fall. Customer Relationship Management assists in the connecting various groups and organizations. It plays a major role in this. For the success of any organization especially the non-for- profit ones, there must be Customer Relationship Management. An effective CRM organization will run, mechanize and document all communications. Solutions of Customer Relationship Management are enormously elastic in permitting one to improved store and arrangement of data. It enables one to recognize and ‘group’ persons or associations so that they get appropriate communications. CRM can therefore be used in connecting the organization to the donors and vice versa. Work cited Ataela, R. (2005). A CRM roadmap: what we know, potential pitfalls, and where to go. Journal of Marketing, 69 (4), forthcoming. Buttle, F. (1999). The S.C.O.P.E. of donor relationship management. Donor Relationship Management, 1 (4), 327-336. Christopher, M. (1999). 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