Top Challenges Impact Campus Ministries Needed to Address:
- Upgrading from Blackbaud eTapestry, which previously took significant time and energy to manage
- Finding a new donor management system that delivers more actionable and responsive data insights
- Incorporating automation to maintain personal relationships with each donor at scale
Outgrowing Its Existing Nonprofit CRM
Since 1995, Impact Campus Ministries has relied on Blackbaud eTapestry to manage its donor data. As the organization grew, the team began to notice inefficiencies with the platform. Recognizing that it had outgrown its nonprofit CRM, Impact Campus Ministries searched for alternatives.
“We found that we could put anything into Blackbaud and pull anything out of Blackbaud, but it didn’t help us in any way. We had to come up with the ideas. We had to come up with the information. We had to pull it back out and run everything on our own.”
—Jeffrey VanderLaan, Vice President, Impact Campus Ministries
After learning about responsive fundraising and becoming intrigued by its framework, Virtuous quickly became a top nonprofit CRM software contender for Impact Campus Ministries. The organization aimed to give every donor a unique and personalized experience and needed a platform that could scale and automate the donor journey. Virtuous met their technological needs and demonstrated a deep understanding of how to be a responsive fundraiser.
“[We asked ourselves] what can we do to automate some of the processes and help free me up to continue to thank every donor? Virtuous is the bread and butter of responsive fundraising—giving everybody that same kind of treatment that a major donor would normally get because some of that automation is done for you.”
—Jeffrey VanderLaan, Vice President, Impact Campus Ministries
Next, convincing the executive team and board to transition donor management platforms was no easy task. Unlike every other CRM for nonprofits requiring a dedicated software management team, Virtuous came with a support team that felt like an extension of the organization’s own staff. This hands-on support reassured Impact Campus Ministries that the transition would be smooth and beneficial in the long run.
How Automation Forged a New Partnership
Automation has opened new doors for Jeff and his team at Impact Campus Ministries. The team developed automated thank-you donor journeys beyond the typical new gift acknowledgment. With Virtuous marketing automation for nonprofits, the organization can identify new donors and personally thank existing donors for supporting new programs or funding areas, taking gift acknowledgment to a new level.
In one instance, the automation flagged a donor who contributed $250 and automatically assigned a task to the appropriate impact staff. This note reached the donor, who then passed it on to a contact searching for a ministry partner. As a result, that contact is now a partnering ministry with Impact Campus Ministries.
On the operations side, tasks can be automatically assigned to the appropriate staff members for follow-up, relieving Jeff from managing everything manually within the CRM himself.
“In our organization, everyone is a fundraiser. But in our legacy system, I [was the one who] pulled all [the data] out; I created and sent all the tasks and things [for] staff outside of the system. Now, in Virtuous, all of that’s being done inside of it, and I’m now getting help with it.”
—Jeffrey VanderLaan, Vice President, Impact Campus Ministries
CRM Software That Helped Transform Impact Campus Ministries Into a $2.5M Organization
When Impact Campus Ministries still used Blackbaud, its annual revenue was around $1.6 million in 2022. Since implementing Virtuous, the organization’s annual revenue has grown to $2.7 million in 2024. —a 68% lift in growth in only two years.
“[We have] 2,200 donors and 1,500 of them are monthly recurring donors. [This makes us] unique, but we would lose that opportunity if we couldn’t be responsive to people. Virtuous has allowed us to communicate individually, to catch things that should be caught.”
—Jeffrey VanderLaan, Vice President, Impact Campus Ministries
The power of Impact Campus Ministries’ stewardship speaks for itself, and its success is in part attributed to Virtuous’ responsive nonprofit CRM and marketing automation features. These features have led to a 68% retention rate—27% higher than the average nonprofit, per the latest retention data from The Fundraising Effectiveness Project.
