‘Without this we would fall behind our ‘competitors’ who are also working with Irish donors’.
Our digital transformation challenge
While we are in the much bigger process of creating a donor portal on our CRM system we wanted to create an information display donor portal as part of our website. This will provide bespoke information (e.g. grant stories, videos) and an automated platform that can make grants and issues receipts as needed.
Without this we would fall behind our ‘competitors’ who are also working with Irish donors. We needed to ensure we meet the needs of an emerging cohort of donors in Ireland – young entrepreneurs who are looking to give back and want to receive information quicker in a digital format.
Our solution
We worked with our website development agency to develop a sign-in section on our website that displayed 4 essential informational components; Grant making opportunities, upcoming events, impact stories and philanthropy education.
We have now created the platform and are tracking the analytics from the last two months. We are now looking at adapting the donor portal to meet the needs of users. This includes allowing donors to register for events through the website and creating a system in-house to have a constant rotation of grant making opportunities for donors.
Takeaways from the action learning process
Creating audience buy-in stages – while we couldn’t create the full platform quickly by creating a first version of the platform we can see how donors are using the system and get some feedback for the next phase.
Mapping internal information flows – some information needed for the platform was more difficult to get than we first realised. We have now created a information loop for the portals.
Issues that remain unresolved
The information that is available is general and not bespoke to that specific donor. This is the first stage in creating a donor portal that is integrated with our CRM system so donors can make grants and see their fund statements on the portal. This mapping work is currently underway.
Find out more about the community foundation for Ireland here:
https://www.communityfoundation.ie/
