Why NPOs should rely on Microsoft

Non Profit Organisations

Donor journey, donor and relationship management with Microsoft Dynamics 365

Why NPOs should rely on Microsoft

Ambit Group is a partner for the digital transformation process in the 3rd sector. We enable NPOs to achieve a comprehensive and efficient transformation and a sustainable change in the organization with the step onto the Microsoft platform.

NPOs (associations, societies, foundations, charities, clubs, churches, political parties or cooperatives) face immense challenges in the context of digital transformation. Their various stakeholders expect digital services (e.g. member portal, event management, marketing automation) and require a fast and efficient administration of their concerns. However, the often longstanding infrastructure, a heterogeneous system landscape with isolated solutions and traditionally programmed expert systems usually do not allow for integrative work in the organization and do not offer the central, cross-departmental use of a data pool. The desired automation of processes cannot be adequately implemented in this environment. The 3rd sector faces the challenge of satisfying precisely these demands, which employees also demand in order to achieve their goals, with investments in innovation and the future.

Main requirements

Customised marketing based on donor journeys

A key factor for success in non-profit organisations is the support of donors with a target group-specific approach. Here, the focus is on the term "donor journey". The donor journey includes all administrative and communicative processes after the acquisition of a new donor and enables a real action-response cycle. These processes support the retention of a donor to the NPO, help reactivating or even upgrading them. Processes must therefore be adapted and individualised to donor behaviour. The challenge is to deliver the right message to the matching recipient at the right time through the right channel. Channels may include websites, social media, newsletters and contact forms. Offline activities such as mailings, events, phone calls or personal conversations are also components of a donor journey. They enable numerous personal touchpoints that increase donor loyalty.

 

Donor & Relationship Management

The donation market has become much more competitive and the acquisition of new donors is becoming increasingly complex. The NPO's focus is therefore on building long-term relationships with donors. The 360° view of all donor-related information enables relationships with donors, including all communication, to be cultivated individually.

 

Transparent money flow

Every donation can be assigned to a donation project and a donation event. The CRM maps the entire flow of money from the receipt of the donation to its proper use. This transparency promotes donors' trust in the organisation and thus their willingness to donate.

 

Informative evaluations

Evaluations, analyses and reports are an important part of strategic fundraising. Internal dashboards or integrated Power BI map the data in a way that allows strategic fundraising to be optimised. This makes it possible to identify where there is potential for cost savings and where promising investments can be made.

 

Comprehensive campaign management

Maintaining the various touch points with donors is an important part of campaign management. This allows activities targeted at the touch point to be planned, managed and evaluated according to the target group. This ensures an overall view of the development of all target groups within donors, partners, members and potential new donors at any time.

 

Ambit Group as a partner for NPO

Ambit Group has been intensively involved in this sector over the past years and has recognised enormous synergies with already established solutions in tourism and sports & entertainment. While in tourism the focus is on the guest and in sports on the fan, in NPOs the focus is on members, sponsors or donors. The complexity of the relationships requires a solution that can adequately map processes from mass communication to personal meetings. As an experienced CRM and ERP partner, Ambit Group has been dealing with demanding business processes for over 20 years. We integrate new solutions into existing system landscapes, or gradually transfer them to the cloud-based Microsoft platform. These projects are strategic change projects and affect the organisation as a whole, its processes, the technology and, last but not least, the people working there.

 

"NPOs should be able to concentrate on their core competencies. Microsoft's technology supports them in doing so. A 360° view of members and donors thus enables data-based work and decision-making."

Thomas Lewandowski, Business Unit Lead NPO & Education, Ambit Group

Microsoft Platform for NPOs

Microsoft is globally active in the third sector and has built up its own department for this purpose. All revenues there are reinvested in the further development of the Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofits. This has the following vision:

 

Microsoft has been working with NPO experts to identify the requirements of future-oriented organisations and has gradually developed concrete solutions in the areas of infrastructure (Azure), productivity (Microsoft 365) and business processes (Dynamics 365, Power Platform). These are now available to NPOs at greatly reduced licensing costs.

In the area of business processes, a significant contribution is the development of the NPO-specific data model for Dynamics 365. The classic data model in CRM (sales) is typically structured for companies that sell something (lead/opportunity management). But NPOs require a completely different data model.

Ambit Group NPO solutions

Based on the NPO data model provided by Microsoft, Ambit Group has developed a local solution for the DACH region. As a local Microsoft Gold Partner for Cloud Business Applications and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), we use the globally available Microsoft core solution and implement their individual requirements with our expertise. The modular solution is conceptually as follows:

 

It is our goal to lead 3rd sector organisations into a modern software standard and to develop scalable industry solutions: Always based on the now/low code application framework. They are continuously developed further and supplemented with new functionalities. Innovations, optimisations and integrations developed by Microsoft are permanently taken into account and integrated.

Professional development focus (last 3 years)

Webinar recordings (german-speaking)

Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofits (NPO) Overview

Fundraising with Microsoft Dynamics 365

Microsoft Platform / Dynamics 365 for Associations

Ambit Group NPO references

Ambit Group is proud and grateful to partner with the following organizations:

Ambit Group NPO team

Our NPO team is growing continuously. It consists of NPO experts, solution architects, power platform engineers and software developers who explicitly want to use their experience and passion for NPO. As a strategic branch of Ambit Group, the group invests in the further development of the NPO foundation and the unit is closely supported by the management and is embedded in a long-term focus on the 3rd sector. The Berlin office is the central point of contact for NPO projects in the entire DACH region. The individual projects are implemented transnationally by employees of the entire Ambit Group.

 

Are you interested in this topic? I would be pleased to answer any queries you have.

Thomas Lewandowski, Business Unit Lead NPO & Education

thomas.lewandowski@!ambit-group.com
+49 151 22 94 88 63

Impressions

Are you interested in this topic? I would be pleased to answer any queries you have.

Thomas Lewandowski, Business Unit Lead NPO & Education

thomas.lewandowski@!ambit-group.com
+49 151 22 94 88 63