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Year End Donations Fund Running Water

Case STUDY

CRM Migration

SCU Health Science

Educating successful integrative, whole-person healthcare providers.

The Challenge

United Way of Greater Cincinnati (UWGC) is dedicated to helping families flourish. Guided by community voices and data-driven strategies, UWGC unites diverse stakeholders comprised of individuals and organizations to address issues holistically.

Their approach is multifaceted, encompassing proactive interventions, advocacy, and investment across three key pillars: educational advancement, financial resilience, and housing stability.

For decades, workplace or employee giving brought in more than 90 percent of UWGC’s annual revenue. However, post-Covid years saw a steep decline in funding, exposing a need for diversified revenue streams and greater donation opportunities.

Additionally, UWGC was looking to strengthen its relationship with Workplace Corporate Partners (large business entities whose employees are the workplace donors), but was unsure where to begin.

Their challenges prompted them to connect with CauseMic, seeking answers to questions like:

  • How can we diversify our revenue streams?
  • How do we develop a more unified message that can be leveraged across our fundraising campaigns?
  • How can we inspire and build trust with our existing donor base to increase their investment through annual and monthly giving
  • How can we improve ties with our Workplace Corporate Partners?

Our Solution

To answer UWGC’s questions and address their challenges:

  • We analyzed UWGC’s existing donor base—specifically donation frequency, level of giving, and affiliation parameters—to identify fundraising audiences for annual and monthly giving outside of workplace donors.
  • We conducted interviews with numerous UWGC philanthropic partners to determine opportunity gaps and any friction hindering more fruitful engagement. We found a notable lack of understanding regarding the exact nature of UWGC’s work, highlighting a need to clearly convey their efforts. Information materials were required to effectively communicate UWGC campaigns to employees and others.
  • We worked with UWGC to clearly define their unique value proposition to help clarify and distinguish their work for current and prospective supporters. This centered on their holistic approach toward addressing financial, educational, and housing issues to help families within the Greater Cincinnati area thrive.
  • For a more cohesive donor experience, we developed a comprehensive content planner and strategy calendar across UWGC’s campaigns. Content themes were rooted in UWGC’s newly defined value proposition and addressed their three core pillars.
  • To expand fundraising beyond workplace giving, we determined opportunities for donors to give directly to UWGC by creating easy-to-understand appeals and plain-speak messaging.

The Results

  • United Way of Greater Cincinnati now had a clearly actionable plan to diversify their revenue streams for workplace giving and beyond, including new strategies to build out their annual and monthly giving programs.
  • Along with insights from CauseMic-conducted partner interviews, UWGC utilized our research and analysis to cultivate solid relationships with existing and future Workplace Corporate Partners.

The Challenge

Southern California University of Health Sciences offers its students an academic community centered on the philosophy of competent, caring, and integrative healthcare. Its Alumni Services team is dedicated to sustaining lifelong relationships with alumni through regular outreach and engagement opportunities. 

Unfortunately, like many nonprofits, SCUHS found their existing CRM — Raiser’s Edge — to be a recurring hindrance to their work. Raiser’s Edge’s rigid architecture and challenging reporting system made it difficult for them to access the data they needed, when they needed it, and to engage effectively with their alumni. They needed a new CRM, but faced the daunting task of exporting their data, making sense of the multitude of tables and spreadsheets, and migrating everything correctly to the new system.

SCUHS Medical staff looking over documents

The SCUHS Alumni Services team faced two primary challenges with Raiser’s Edge:

  1. Their email marketing platform was not a user-friendly experience. They weren’t able to easily get content out to their alumni. 
  2. It was difficult for them to access and update the data they had stored about their alumni. Although they had hoped to be able to update contact records with a third party address finder, getting that information into Raiser’s Edge was causing a lot of headaches and delays. 
  3. Finally, leaving Raiser’s Edge is a famously complex and time-consuming affair.

In the future, their team wanted two simple yet substantial improvements:

  • The ability to quickly and easily locate essential data about individual alumni: for example, when they had graduated, with what degree, and how much they’d donated to SCUHS over their lifetime. 
  • Simple and effective management of and communication with their alumni audience moving forward.

Our Solutions

Modern and user-friendly CRM

We implemented HubSpot Marketing and Sales Hubs for a custom, accessible, and effective CRM solution, seamlessly integrated with Fundraise Up.

Improved online donations

By changing their donation platform from Raiser’s Edge to Fundraise Up, we enabled SCUHS’s alumni team to quickly spin up user-friendly fundraising campaigns.

Complete data migration

We meticulously migrated all of their alumni data from Raiser’s Edge to HubSpot and transformed it to suit HubSpot’s architecture.

Custom templates

We created email and landing page templates for SCUHS’s alumni department to use in creating new events, fundraising campaigns, and communications with their alumni audiences.

SCUHS Building Exterior

The Results

“Southern California University of Health Sciences had the pleasure of working with CauseMic for the integration of our CRM system from Raiser’s Edge to HubSpot, and I am beyond impressed with the entire experience. From start to finish, the team at CauseMic provided exceptional service, technical expertise, and ongoing support that made the transition smooth and seamless. 

The initial consultation was thorough, and CauseMic took the time to understand our unique needs and objectives. They presented us with a detailed plan for the integration process and addressed any concerns we had with clarity and professionalism. The communication throughout the project was top-notch, and we always felt informed and confident in the progress being made.

The actual integration was flawless. CauseMic’s team worked efficiently to ensure all data–donor records, contact information, and historical transactions–was transferred accurately and securely from Raiser’s Edge to HubSpot. They ensured that the mapping of fields between the two systems was precise, and the data integrity was maintained throughout. 

What truly sets CauseMic apart is their dedication to customer support. The team went above and beyond to provide comprehensive training on how to use HubSpot’s CRM functionality, helping our team get up to speed quickly. We also appreciated the post-integration support they offered, addressing any questions or minor issues promptly, and making sure that our new system was fully optimized. 

CauseMic’s expertise and commitment to customer success have truly made a difference in our operations. The integration has helped streamline our processes, improve data accessibility, and enhance our donor management efforts. I highly recommend CauseMic to any organization looking to integrate their CRM systems or seeking reliable tech consulting. Their professionalism, responsiveness, and knowledge make them a standout partner in the industry. Thank you, CauseMic, for making this transition a smooth, stress-free experience!”

– Kelley Lewis, Director of Alumni Services, Southern California University of Health Science

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“Sometimes you need to know when to utilize outside resources like CauseMic, who are experts in these kinds of website migrations.”

Surfrider Foundation

Ruarri Serpa
Senior Technology Manager

“CauseMic managing timelines and deadlines was everything.”

Gus Gates
West Coast Regional Director

“Project management work from Franny was very helpful to not have to keep track of the entire project and dependencies.”

Ed Mazzarella
Senior Director of Network Strategy

“HubSpot CMS was a good selection to fit our needs.”

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Michelle Kremer
Chief Operating Officer

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