Knowing the hardship her mother faced growing up in children’s homes drew Dawn Ingram to a career in philanthropy, and her work with the Royal Navy & Royal Marines Charity (RNRMC) is especially relevant to Ingram as a former reservist whose father served with the British Army. “I do personally understand those challenges and sacrifices that come with being in the services and why It’s good to have a charity for support.”

Ingram serves as the director of fundraising for RNRMC, which pursues a multi-faceted mission to care for older age veterans, improve relationships within naval families, assist those in time of need, help sailors and marines transition into civilian life, and improve morale of those serving and deployed. While the charity generates income in a variety of ways, annual donations are key and recently have reached £2.6 million.

RNRMC elevated the capabilities of their CRM database and initiated a digital transformation of their fundraising practices when the charity adopted the leading fundraising software solution for nonprofits—Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT. Now, four years later, Ingram’s team is bolstering their capacity to support the UK’s naval community through an even deeper partnership with Blackbaud’s teams for customer success, professional services, and training.

Choosing a CRM Built for Charities

“Blackbaud enables us to keep moving forward and expanding the areas that we want to fundraise in,” Ingram explained. “The answers and the support that we need are there.”

Ingram originally joined RNRMC as head of corporate partnerships as the charity realized they needed to replace “a very clunky” fundraising software system and database that required repetitive manual work and didn’t allow them the flexibility and flow they needed to best steward supporters and boost donations as the charity grew in scope.

As RNRMC narrowed the replacement options in 2019, Ingram knew using a CRM platform originally designed for sales—and not the unique work of fundraising—wouldn’t help the organization achieve its ambitious goals. She’d used a CRM like this in a previous role and knew the difficulty it created for herself and her team. By comparison when she previously used Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT at another charity, she became a fan of the software, which she found to be intuitive and user-friendly with accessible training.

“Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT provides a database and supporting capabilities specifically designed for charities to drive successful fundraising. That was a key factor in our decision to select Blackbaud,” Ingram said.

Collaborating on Best Practices and Data Health

RNRMC’s fundraising team switched their database over to Raiser’s Edge NXT during a stretch of challenges that included COVID-19, furloughs, and staffing changes. Pressing ahead in partnership with their Blackbaud Customer Success manager, Ingram has led her team to adopt more of Raiser’s Edge NXT’s time-saving automated workflows, while also pursuing impactful data health projects with a Blackbaud professional services consultant.

While many charities wind up with duplicate database entries for supporters, RNRMC is especially susceptible to the problem, as many of the charity’s supporters are sailors and Marines who see changes in rank and address as their careers advance.

Working with Blackbaud, RNRMC identified 30% of entries in their supporter database as duplicates. With their removal, the database is becoming more efficient and reliable, allowing fundraisers to better steward constituents by using the most up-to-date titles and contact information available.

Another win that boosted revenue by a full percentage point came as RNRMC captured additional Gift Aid funding from the UK government that the charity was still eligible to apply for based on Gift Aid declarations made by donors. At the same time, their Blackbaud professional services consultant helped RNRMC fine-tune their processes to maximize captured Gift Aid contributions moving forward.

Game-changing Capabilities and Support

RNRMC has made added progress with new features from Blackbaud, Ingram said, including the latest generation of “game-changing” optimized online donation forms that seamlessly flow from their website to their database. As her team at RNRMC updates legacy websites for planned giving and expands the number of funds they manage in collaboration with key frontline charities, they stand to benefit even more from the integrated technology provided by Blackbaud Merchant Services.

In addition to the support they’ve received from their Blackbaud Customer Success manager and their Blackbaud professional services consultant, Ingram credits the accessible training package from Blackbaud University for allowing her team to fully tap into the power and possibilities provided by Blackbaud. “The Blackbaud team is constantly keeping us up to date. We always have someone to ask if we’re not sure about the right solution.”

That synergy has led another RNRMC staff member to move from a role in fundraising to database lead, with strategic momentum that continues to grow, Ingram said. “We’ve really pushed everything forward the past year through our partnership with Blackbaud.”