You’ve spent hours building the perfect dashboard. The colours pop, the charts are clear, the metrics look spot‑on. You hit ‘share’ with a little burst of pride… and then the questions start. “That number can’t be right, can it?”“Hang on, my report says something different.”“Where did you get that from?” Sound familiar? Poor data quality … Read more
Imperfect data is often seen as something to be avoided or discarded, but it can actually provide valuable insights and opportunities for improvement. While bad data may not be ideal for making informed decisions, it can serve as a catalyst for taking action to obtain better data. By recognising the limitations of your current data … Read more
“Why can’t we just use Excel instead of getting a proper database?” It’s one of the most common questions we hear from charities, and it’s a fair one to ask. Excel deserves the question, because it’s genuinely good. It’s flexible, familiar, and nearly everyone in the sector already knows how to open it. With Power … Read more
A CRM will fail at some point. An integration stops syncing overnight. A batch update overwrites months of Gift Aid declarations. A migration script does something nobody tested for. This happens to well-run databases as often as neglected ones, because the causes are rarely about how careful anyone was. The real difference between organisations is … Read more
You went live. You survived the go-live. You probably breathed a huge sigh of relief and got on with the work. But here you are, 12 months later, and something feels a bit… off. Maybe a few processes have got clunky. Maybe the team has started going around the system rather than through it. Maybe … Read more
Here is something we have seen consistently over many years of CRM work in the charity sector: when a CRM project goes wrong, the system rarely gets the blame it deserves. And when a CRM project goes right, the system rarely gets the credit either. That is because CRM success or failure almost never comes … Read more
The New Year is a blank page. Make sure the system you’re using to write your charity’s story is fit for the task.