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CRM Guide - Discovery - Stock take

1. Create a project team

It's really important you don't make this one person's problem to solve. Working out what you need and what your requirements are is probably the biggest part of this process; it should involve everyone who is going to use the system. Even if you're a small charity, we recommend creating a working group with at least the follow roles:

  • Project Sponsor - The person with overall accountability for the project. They should have the authority to make decisions.
  • Project Lead - The person with overall responsibility for executing the project. They should have good working knowledge of your current systems and processes, and be able to work with others in the organisation to gather your requirements.
  • Systems champions - representatives from all functions that will be using the system, for example fundraising, case management, volunteering. Some of these people might be volunteers if you're a small charity. Your systems champions are super important as they will help manage change within the organisation, become the spokespeople for the system and be the first port of call for each of the functions.

2.  Audit existing systems and data sources 

 Even if you have an existing database, it's likely you will have information in places other than the database. You will need to work with each function to understand all the places they collect, manage and report on information. This includes:

  • Data collection forms (online or paper)
  • Spreadsheets
  • Word/Google docs with case notes for example
  • Any existing databases

Essentially, if anyone in any of your teams reviews, enters, reports on information - it needs to be included.

As well as simply listing it, you want to be sure you know why it is used, what works and what doesn't - this will be the very start of your requirements.

 We've created a simple template for you to use here. 

3. Understand your capabilities

 How digitally mature your team is really matters. You can select the best database in the world, but if it 'feels' complex or big and your teams are generally more nervous of tech or 'new' tech, you may be setting them up for failure.

At this point you are just trying get an overall gauge - we will explore this more in the scoping stage.

In addition to understanding how well your users can adopt a new system, you need to set realistic expectations around how well you can maintain a system after you go live. This will include:

  • Your technical skills
  • Your time capabilities to support any issues or changes needed.