The Complete Non-Profit CRM Guide

How to choose and set up a CRM: data model, import and cleanup, lists, major donors, volunteers and members, GDPR and reporting, with WeGlow CRM and its prices.

What is a CRM, and do you need one yet?

A CRM is one place that records who your supporters are, what they did and what you promised them. Up to a few hundred contacts and one person in charge, a well-kept spreadsheet can be enough; after that a CRM pays off.

A CRM is a memory for your relationships

CRM stands for customer relationship management. For a non-profit it is simpler: one place that records who your supporters are, what they did and what you promised them. Donors, volunteers, members, sponsors and partners sit together, so nobody gets a thank-you email one day and an ask the next as if you had never met.

A spreadsheet is sometimes enough

Up to a few hundred contacts and one person who keeps everything, a well-kept spreadsheet may do. That is a rule of thumb, not a law. You outgrow it fast in these situations:

• Several people work in the same list and overwrite each other.
• The same person appears three times, spelled three ways.
• You no longer know who received a certificate or a thank-you letter.
• Gifts are in your bank, in your donation tool and in an Excel, and no total matches.
• A volunteer leaves and takes "their" list with them.
• Someone asks you to erase their data and you do not know where it all sits.

What a CRM does for you

1. One record per person with gifts, notes, appointments and consents.
2. Lists that fill themselves, for example "gave in the last six months".
3. Tasks for your team, so follow-up does not depend on memory.
4. Reports for your board and funders.
5. Permissions: who may see and change what.

An honest check

Answer three questions with yes or no: (1) Do more than two people work with supporter data? (2) Do you have more than 500 contacts? (3) Do you sometimes lose opportunities because data is scattered? Two yeses? Then a CRM probably pays off. Three nos? Then first improve your spreadsheet with the rules from chapter 4.

Worked example (invented numbers)

An association with 1,200 contacts spends 6 hours a month merging lists, correcting addresses and building certificate lists. Over 12 months that is 72 hours. If a CRM saves half, that is 36 hours: almost a full week of volunteer work you can spend on personal contact with donors. Recalculate this with your own figures.

Checklist

• You know which groups you want to track (donors, volunteers, members, sponsors).
• You know who may use the CRM.
• You have a first goal: for example "thank every donor within 48 hours".

Choosing a CRM: the questions that matter

Choose a CRM based on your own work, not on its feature list. Test each system against ten questions, watch for the red flags and try them with the same 50 contacts.

Start from your work, not from the feature list

A CRM with sixty features of which you use five is more expensive and harder than needed. First write down the five things your team does every month, then test each system against them.

The ten questions

1. People and organisations: can I keep donors, volunteers, members and sponsors in one file, with a label per role?
2. Gifts: do gifts arrive automatically from my donation tool, or do I retype them?
3. Record: do I see a timeline per person with gifts, notes and emails?
4. Lists: can I build smart lists that update themselves?
5. Import: can I load my existing list, and undo a mistake?
6. Permissions: can I give members and volunteers limited access?
7. GDPR: can I record consents, erase data and see who did what?
8. Reports: can I make a board report without a consultant?
9. Tax certificates: does it support my country's rules?
10. Price: how does the cost grow with the number of contacts, and are users limited?

Red flags

• You need to hire a consultant to get started.
• You cannot export your data in a common format (CSV, Excel).
• The price is not on the website.
• Every extra user or module costs extra, and the total is unclear.
• The vendor cannot say where your data is stored (in the EU or not).

A scorecard to copy

System: [name]. Per criterion 0 (no), 1 (partly), 2 (yes): roles in one file [ ], gifts automatic [ ], timeline [ ], smart lists [ ], import with undo [ ], permissions [ ], GDPR tools [ ], reports [ ], certificates [ ], clear price [ ]. Total: [ ]/20. Remarks: [ ].

How do you test?

1. Pick two or three systems.
2. Load the same 50 test contacts into each (invented or anonymised).
3. Have two colleagues do the same five tasks: register a gift, build a list, add a note, view a report, delete a person.
4. Note how long it took and where they got stuck.

Who decides?

Let the people who work in it every day take part in the decision, not just the chair or the IT volunteer. A CRM nobody wants to open is an expensive archive.

Your data model: what to keep, and what not

Keep your data model small: keep only what you actually use. Four building blocks are enough: person, gift, relationship and contact moment.

Keep it small

A data model is the list of things you track and how they relate. The fewer fields, the more reliable your data stays. A common rule of thumb: only keep what you actually use.

The four building blocks

1. Person: name, language, email, address, phone (only what is needed).
2. Gift: amount, date, source (website, bank transfer, event), purpose.
3. Relationship: role (donor, volunteer, member, sponsor), household or organisation the person belongs to.
4. Touchpoint: note, conversation, email, visit, with a date and who did it.

Minimal fields per person

• First name and last name in separate fields.
• Language (nl, fr, en): essential in Belgium.
• Email address, optional.
• Postal address in fixed fields (street, number, postcode, town, country).
• Source: where did this person come from?
• Consent for email and for post, with a date.
• Tags for roles and interests.

What you would rather not keep

• Sensitive data (health, religion, political preference) unless truly necessary and you have a legal basis.
• Free text with opinions about people. Write notes as if the person could read them, because they have the right to access their data.
• Data of people you have not spoken to for years with no reason to keep it.

Tags or fields?

Use tags for what someone is or wants (for example "volunteer", "interested in legacies") and fields for facts you want to filter or count (for example birth year, member number). Start with ten tags and only expand when your team knows them.

Naming conventions

Conventions: 1. Capitals as in a name ("Jan De Smet", not "JAN DE SMET"). 2. One space, no spaces at the ends. 3. Country as a two-letter code or the full name, never both. 4. Phone with country code (+32). 5. An empty value stays empty, never fill in "n/a" or "-".

Households

When two people live at the same address and give together, record a household relationship rather than one record with two names. That way you send one letter but can still thank each person.

Checklist

• Your list of fields fits on one page.
• For every field you know who fills it in and why.
• You have a short guide with the naming conventions.

Importing and cleaning up without panic

Clean first, import second. Collect your sources, work on a copy, look for duplicates and start with 20 rows as a test.

Clean first, import second

Most CRM projects fail not because of the software but because of messy data copied over unseen. Take a week for the cleanup. It pays off in every later step.

Six steps

1. Collect all sources: your member list, mailing list, volunteer list, donation export, event till sheets and the treasurer's list.
2. Make a copy. Never work in the original.
3. One column structure: first name, last name, email, language, street, number, postcode, town, country, phone, source, role, mail consent (yes/no), consent date.
4. Find duplicates: sort by email and by last name with postcode. Watch for "Jan De Smet", "J. Desmet" and "Jan de smet".
5. Wrong and missing data: emails without "@", postcodes with letters, empty last names. Keep a "to check" tab.
6. Consent: set mail consent to "yes" only if you can show someone gave it. In doubt? Set "no" and ask again.

What you throw away

• Clearly outdated addresses (returned letter, email bounce).
• Test rows and internal addresses.
• People who unsubscribed or asked to be erased.

The import itself

1. Start with 20 rows as a test.
2. Check how each column was mapped, especially language and consent.
3. Read the summary: how many new, how many updated, how many skipped?
4. Then apply the full list.
5. Check 10 random people after the import.

Worked example (invented numbers)

You have three lists: 600 members, 900 mail subscribers and 300 donors, 1,800 rows in total. After cleanup, 450 rows turn out to be duplicates, 60 outdated and 30 without a usable address. You import 1,260 unique people. Without cleanup you would have had 1,800 records, of which 540 unusable or duplicate: you would have emailed some donors up to three times.

Template: columns for your import

first name | last name | email | language | street | house number | postcode | town | country | phone | source | role | mail consent | consent date

If it goes wrong anyway

A good system lets you undo an import and stores the source of each import. Ask for that when you choose (chapter 2), because it is the difference between a five-minute mistake and a week-long one.

Segmenting and lists that update themselves

A list is a question, not a file: a smart list recalculates itself. Start with the ten lists every non-profit needs and agree per list who does what.

A list is a question, not a file

A good list answers a question: "who gave in the last six months?", "who is a volunteer and speaks French?", "who gave before but not for over a year?". A smart list recalculates that question itself, so you never use an old copy.

Ten lists every association needs

1. New supporters (last 30 days).
2. Donors of the last year.
3. Monthly donors.
4. Lapsed donors (gave before, not in the last year).
5. Donors above a threshold you choose, to follow up personally.
6. First-time donors this month (for an extra thank-you).
7. Volunteers.
8. Members about to renew.
9. Per language: Dutch, French, English.
10. No consent for email (to know who you may only contact by post, or not at all).

Gift-based segments: recency, frequency, amount

A common fundraising technique looks at three things: how recently someone gave, how often, and how much. You do not need a formula. A simple start: call someone "warm" with a gift in the last 12 months, "cool" at 13 to 36 months, "cold" after that. Use a different tone per group.

Lists with follow-up

For every list you agree who does what. A list nobody follows up is a full file. For example: "Every Monday Sofie reviews last week's first-time donors and writes each a personal line."

Template: agreement per list

List: [name]. Question it answers: [..]. Owner: [..]. What we do: [..]. How often: [..]. Result we measure: [..].

Worked example (invented numbers)

You have 1,260 contacts: 210 gave in the last year, 340 gave earlier, 150 are volunteers and 560 never gave. Your lapsed donors (340) get one warm email asking "will you join again?". If 3 percent (an assumption) give again, that is about 10 donors back. That is more than a new campaign without an existing audience usually delivers.

Checklist

• Your lists are smart where possible, manual where not.
• Every list has a name that says what it does.
• Every list has an owner.
• Each year you delete lists nobody uses.

Major donors: a file and calm follow-up

Major gifts grow from relationships, not from mailings. Follow each opportunity in five steps, with an owner and a next step with a date.

Major gifts grow from relationships, not mailings

Major gifts, grants and sponsorships rarely come from a mass email. They grow in conversations that last weeks or months. A CRM helps you keep track of that conversation, so you forget nothing and nobody is asked the same thing twice.

Who is a major donor?

You decide. For a small association it may be everyone above 500 euros in a year, for a larger one 5,000 euros. Choose a threshold and write it down. Also look at people who give often in small amounts, businesses in your region and local foundations.

The path in five steps

1. Identify: who could give? Use your lists (chapter 5).
2. Get to know: a personal contact, a visit to the project, a coffee.
3. Ask: a concrete ask for a concrete goal, with an amount.
4. Decision: a yes, a no or a "later". Note when you will call back.
5. Thank and report: personally, quickly and with a report on what the money did.

What you track per opportunity

• Who the contact is and who on your side manages the relationship.
• The amount and purpose.
• The stage (exploring, conversation, proposal, waiting, decided).
• The next step, with a date.
• Documents: proposal, letter, agreement.
• A reason if it did not happen, so you can learn later.

Sponsorship

A sponsorship contract has a term, an amount, counter-benefits and a renewal date. Put the renewal date in your diary three months ahead and agree who calls.

Template: first ask to a local business

Hello [name], thank you for visiting our project. You saw how we [concrete work]. Would [business] support us with [amount] for [purpose]? We will provide [counter-benefit] and a report in [month]. May I call next week to hear what you think?

Worked example (invented numbers)

You have 10 serious opportunities averaging 3,000 euros. If you win 3 of them, that is 9,000 euros. If you also keep the other 7 warm during the year with an update and a thank-you, chances are some will still say yes next year.

Checklist

• Your threshold for "major donor" is on paper.
• Every opportunity has an owner and a next step with a date.
• Documents hang on the record, not in someone's mailbox.
• Every week you review opportunities with an overdue step.

Volunteers and members in the same system

People who help often give too. Keep volunteers and members next to your donors in one record per person, and build thank-yous and reminders into a routine.

Those who help often give too, and the other way round

Many associations keep volunteers in one table, members in another and donors in a third. As a result nobody knows that the volunteer who helps every Saturday has also been giving for three years, or that a member who did not renew is still a loyal donor.

Volunteers: what you track

• Contact details and an emergency number.
• Availability (days, times) and skills.
• Shifts or events they took part in.
• Required documents or screening, if your activity needs it (for example when working with children).
• Appreciation: when did someone last get a thank-you?

Volunteers: a simple cycle

1. Sign up through a form on your site.
2. Get to know through a conversation or tour.
3. Schedule on shifts that fit.
4. Remind a day before.
5. Thank within a week, and once a year in a big way.

Members: what you track

• Member number, start date and expiry date.
• Contribution and payment status.
• Attendance at member meetings, with registration and any questions.
• Documents, such as a signed application.

Renewal without hassle

Send a first reminder 30 days before expiry, a second 7 days before and a last on the day itself. Keep the tone friendly and give one link to pay.

Template: membership reminder

Hi {{first_name}}, your membership of [association name] expires on [date]. Thanks to members like you we can [result]. Renew your membership in two minutes: [link]. Questions? Reply to this email.

Template: message after a volunteer shift

Hi [name], thank you for your help on Saturday. Thanks to you we could [concrete result]. The next shifts are at [link]. If you want to change your availability, let us know.

Worked example (invented numbers)

You have 80 volunteers, 30 of whom also give. That is 37.5 percent. Without a shared system you did not know, and you asked them for money every year as if they were strangers. With one system you thank their gift in the same conversations as their hours.

Checklist

• Every volunteer and member has one record that also shows their gifts.
• You have a fixed thank-you cycle for volunteers.
• Renewal emails are ready.

GDPR in your CRM: erasure, access and permissions

A CRM makes the GDPR easier if you can answer six questions: why, on what basis, how long, who has access, how you erase and what to do in a breach. Give every team member a role.

A CRM makes the GDPR easier, if you use it well

This is not legal advice; for your situation consult your data protection authority or a lawyer. The basics are clear though: you keep people's data, so you must know why, for how long, who can access it and how you erase it.

The six questions

1. Why do you have this data? Every kind of data has a purpose: processing a gift, sending a certificate, sending a newsletter.
2. On what basis? For example consent (newsletter) or a legal obligation (certificates, accounting).
3. How long do you keep it? Put time limits on paper. For example: accounting data for the legal period, mail consent until withdrawn.
4. Who has access? Only those who need it.
5. Can you view, correct and erase data? Someone can ask for that; you must answer within one month (in Dutch), extendable by two months for complex requests.
6. What about a data breach? Who reports what to whom? Put it in a short procedure.

Access per role

A good split is: admin (everything, settings, erasing), editor (update data and register gifts) and viewer (look only, for example for the board). Do not give everyone admin rights, not even for convenience.

Traces

A log showing who changed what helps with mistakes and with questions from the regulator. Ask for such a log when you choose.

What to do on an erasure request

1. Verify the requester's identity.
2. Find the person in the CRM and in your other systems (email, spreadsheet, paper file).
3. Erase what you may erase, because erasure has exceptions (in Dutch). Keep what you must legally keep, such as accounting data, and explain why.
4. Confirm in writing.
5. Note the request (without the erased data).

Template: reply to an erasure request

Hello [name], we received your request of [date]. We have removed your data from our lists and systems, except [data] which we must legally keep until [date]. You will not receive any more emails from us. If you have questions, just reply. [Name, role]

Checklist

• You have a register of where you keep personal data.
• Roles are set: not everyone is an admin.
• You know the procedure for an erasure or access request.
• Consents are in the record with a date.
• You have a data processing agreement with your CRM vendor.

Reporting for your board and donors

A report is a story with numbers. The board wants six figures and one sentence: is it going well or not? Donors want to know what their money did.

A report is a story with numbers

A board wants to know whether things are going well and what it must decide. A donor wants to know what their money did. The same CRM can deliver both if your data is in order.

Six figures for the board

1. Total raised this year, compared with last year.
2. Number of donors and new donors.
3. Average gift.
4. Retention: what share of last year's donors gave again this year?
5. Monthly donors and their annual value.
6. Cost per euro raised (fundraising costs divided by income).

Calculating retention (invented numbers)

Last year 400 people gave. This year 260 of them gave again. Retention is 260 divided by 400, so 65 percent. With 180 new donors you have 440 donors this year. If you want the core to grow, work on retention before putting more money into acquisition: it is often cheaper to keep existing donors.

A board report: layout

1. One sentence: are things going well or not?
2. Six figures with comparison.
3. Three notable events (a big gift, a lapsed sponsor, a successful campaign).
4. Risks: what could go wrong?
5. Decisions: what are you asking the board?

Opening sentence template: "By the end of [month] we raised [amount], [x]% more/less than last year. Donor retention is [x]%. We ask the board to decide on [topic]."

A report for donors

This is not a financial report but a story: what changed thanks to the gifts? One photo, one figure, one quote. Also send it to people who no longer get emails because they gave just before the year ended.

Measuring record quality

• Percentage of contacts with an email address.
• Percentage with language filled in.
• Percentage with valid consent.
• Number of suspected duplicates.

Reports that do their job

• Schedule them at a fixed moment (monthly or quarterly).
• Keep one version of the figures; put the calculation date on it.
• Save every report as PDF or Excel for your archive.

WeGlow CRM: what it does and what it costs

WeGlow CRM is part of your WeGlow dashboard and keeps donors, volunteers, members and sponsors in one place. The price follows the number of contacts.

A CRM in your WeGlow dashboard

WeGlow CRM is part of your WeGlow dashboard and keeps donors, volunteers, members and sponsors in one place. Below is what demonstrably exists in the software, tied to the chapters of this guide.

Contacts and record

• One searchable list of everyone who gave, joined or helped, with a record per person showing a timeline, notes, tags, documents, gifts, pledges, household relations and consents.
• Register a gift by hand, for example a bank transfer or cash gift.
• Find duplicate contacts, show them side by side and merge them, including gifts, notes and memberships.
• Record consents, erase data under the GDPR and keep a log of who did what.

Import and lists

• Read in a CSV, Excel or Mailchimp export, review in plain language what will happen and undo the whole import afterwards. Contacts that already have gifts or activity are kept and reported.
• Smart lists that update themselves from filters (for example gave in the last six months), with filters on period, tags and custom fields, plus manual lists.

Tasks and major gifts

• A task list for your team with due dates, categories, steps, comments and a link to a contact or opportunity.
• A pipeline for major gifts, grants and sponsorships with stages, goal progress, a dossier checklist with real files, and closing or reopening with a reason.
• Sponsorship contracts with packages, yearly budget, monthly spread, renewal reminders, invoices per contract and spreadsheet import.

Volunteers and members

• Volunteers: sign-up form, approving requests, shifts and events with a calendar, availability, skills, screening, reminders and emails.
• Members: member list, contributions and payments, sign-up form with documents and signatures, member events with registration and your own questions, member numbers.
• You can switch these modules and the tax certificate module on or off in settings.

Reports and certificates

• Reports as a document, with figures that stay live inside your own sentences, a real spreadsheet view and Excel export. Printing or saving as PDF goes through your browser's print function. You can also have reports delivered by email.
• An Insights tab with income, retention, campaigns and data quality.
• Tax certificates: generate and email them, track what was sent or failed, and review which data is missing. This depends on the organisation's country.

Permissions and Glowie

• Roles Admin, Editor and Viewer, enforced in the database and not only on screen.
• Glowie suggests next actions, call suggestions, list ideas and report findings. You review and confirm: Glowie does not act on its own.
• A Salesforce connection is available in the integration settings.

Prices (excl. VAT)

WeGlow CRM is an add-on whose price follows the number of contacts:

• Starter: up to 1,000 contacts, 29 euros per month or 300 euros per year.
• Growth: up to 5,000 contacts, 59 euros per month or 600 euros per year.
• Scale: up to 10,000 contacts, 89 euros per month or 900 euros per year.
• Pro: up to 25,000 contacts, 149 euros per month or 1,500 euros per year.

Check the current prices in your dashboard. Try it in your WeGlow dashboard: import a trial list of 50 contacts, build one smart list and register one gift.

Read next

More on this topic:

• A CRM for your non-profit: choose, set up, use
• The complete end-of-year fundraising guide
• The complete guide to a fundraising event

Sources

Example figures in this guide are invented and labelled as such; rules of thumb are labelled as rules of thumb. WeGlow features and prices come from our own software and price list (excl. VAT). Check the current prices in your dashboard. Checked on 2 October 2026, external sources on 3 October 2026.

• European Commission: legal grounds for processing data: consent (checked on 3 October 2026).
• European Commission: principles of the GDPR: keep data for the shortest time possible and set time limits (checked on 3 October 2026).
• Belgian Data Protection Authority: rights of citizens: answer within one month, extendable by two months, in Dutch (checked on 3 October 2026).
• Belgian Data Protection Authority: the right to erasure: exceptions, including a legal obligation, in Dutch (checked on 3 October 2026).
• Belgian Data Protection Authority: the right to object: for direct marketing a person can always object without giving reasons, in Dutch (checked on 3 October 2026).

More from Glowie

• How do I handle donor data under the GDPR?
• How to manage volunteers and members in one database
• How to move your donors from Excel to a CRM
• How do I segment and list my supporters?
• How do I track major donors and sponsors?

More about WeGlow

• How WeGlow works
• Pricing
• Our story