Do you manage an association, a club, a non-profit organization? You necessarily need to manage a database of contacts: members, volunteers, donors, partners... To do this, you need CRM software for associations. In this article, we explain the advantages of a CRM for association and we help you choose the best one according to your needs.
Why use a CRM for association?
Centralize your contact data
Often, associations are satisfied with Excel files to
manage the contact details of their contacts. These files are generally not
updated, and the information is scattered right and left: on team members'
computers, in emails, or on emailing software...
It will be easy to update the contact details of your
members at each membership campaign, to add a new volunteer, to find the list
of donors to send them an email... This data can even, with certain software,
be updated updated automatically (when a person registers for an event or pays
their dues online). The result: significant time savings and greater
reliability.
Ensuring your association's compliance with the GDPR
The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), which came into force in 2018, requires you to store your contact data on a single and secure platform, hosted in the European Union.
Your contacts must be able to access their data and
you must easily be able to delete a contact from your database. This requires
the implementation of software that centralizes and protects this data.
Improve communication with your members and donors
To retain your members, recruit volunteers, set up donation campaigns or negotiate partnerships, there is no mystery: you have to communicate!
However, communication is often a weak link within associations, which lack the means and time to communicate well.
CRM software will help you streamline communication
with your contacts and thus not demobilize them. You can very easily follow up
on members who have not yet paid their subscription, recontact a donor you have
heard from, send a newsletter to your partners or elected officials...
How to choose a CRM for association?
Features
First of all, to choose the right CRM software for your association, you must think about your needs:
- Send newsletters to your contacts?
- Allow members to pay their dues online?
- Organize free or paid events with online registration?
- Send quotes or invoices?
- Connecting your CRM to accounting software?
- Manage several geographical branches with differentiated access rights?
- Integrate a members area into your website?
- …
The software that we present below, you will see, are different from each other and do not offer the same options. To choose the right one, it is therefore essential to have defined your needs beforehand with your team, your office and your board of directors.
Ease of use
Ease of use and ergonomics are major criteria for the implementation of your CRM to be a success. Within an association, the teams are not always stable: it is therefore necessary that a new member of the office, a volunteer or an employee can easily take control of the CRM.
We therefore advise you to test a software before
choosing it, in order to be sure that it meets your needs and that you will
have no difficulty in taking it in hand. This is particularly true if your team
of volunteers or employees is old, or not very comfortable with computer tools.
Prices
Your budget is not extensible: the prices will therefore be an important criterion for the choice of your software. Be careful, this does not mean that you must necessarily choose the cheapest CRM software!
Above all, you need to carefully study the prices of
the different players, including options and short lines. Most software offers
a base price, which will increase depending on the number of users, the number
of contacts in your database, or the features used: so remember to do a
simulation.
General or specialized software?
As you will see in our selection, some software is dedicated to associations, and others are generalist. How to choose between the two?
CRM software for associations generally offers
features specific to your needs: membership management, donor space, etc. Some
are not limited to CRM, and even include the management of your association's
or your website's accounts! It can be an advantage. The downside: no more
software is complete, the less efficient it will be on a particular feature.
Association software is sometimes less efficient than general CRM software,
because it is developed by smaller teams and has fewer customers.
The best CRM software for associations: our selection
Assoconnect
Assoconnect is one of the most complete software for managing an association: CRM, membership management, online donation collection, emailing, accounting and even creating your website, you can do it all with Assoconnect.
On purely CRM aspects, Assoconnect is relatively rich:
you can easily import your contacts, create custom fields, segment your
database and do advanced searches. The management of access rights is precise
and the tool is GDPR compliant. In addition, customer support (French) is very
responsive! To find out more, read our opinion on Assoconnect.
hubspot
Hubspot is a CRM software that is aimed at companies as much as associations, but it has many assets to seduce you. Its free version offers advanced marketing features: web forms and landing pages, emailings, shared mailbox, chat and pop ups on your site…
The Hubspot CRM is very complete, but its options are
so numerous that you will have to think carefully about setting up the tool:
this is why we advise you to be accompanied by an expert. Moreover, if the free
version is not enough for you, you will have to pay large sums to exploit all
the possibilities of this tool. To learn more, read our HubSpot CRM review.
Pep's Up
Like Assoconnect, Pep's Up is a complete web platform, French, to manage all the activities of your association: CRM for member management, website, accounting, online store, ticketing...
Pep's Up allows you to import your contacts from an
Excel file, manage your members and even offer them a private space on your
site. You can manage parent-child relationships and create as many groups as
you want to segment your contacts. On the other hand, to date, it does not
manage donations, which makes it a management software for associations that is
a little less complete than its predecessor, to be coupled with other solutions
such as HelloAsso for example. To find out more, read our opinion on Pep’s Up.
Ohme
Ohme is a CRM software dedicated to the voluntary sector. Unlike others, it focuses on CRM aspects: contact management, search and segmentation, multi-user access. Ohme also allows you to issue tax receipts for your donors.
The particularity of Ohme is that it only manages
contact management, and for all your other needs, it connects to a multitude of
tools on the market: Mailchimp, Mailjet or Sendiblue for emailings, WordPress
for your website, Weezevent for ticketing, HelloAsso… Thus, it allows you to
use the best tools for each of your needs, while having a centralized contact
database. Originality: the price of Ohme depends on the annual budget of your
association. To find out more, read our review of Ohme.
MyContribution
Macotisation is a complete management software for associations, with interesting CRM features: member management, file import, personalized labels, duplicate management, sending emails, etc.
In addition, Macotisation manages the payments of your
members and allows them to be collected online (events, internships, annual
subscriptions, etc.). It also allows you to create an online store, and even
manage your accounting as an option! To find out more, read our opinion on MaCotisation.
odoo
Odoo is a very rich open source management software. It offers dozens of modules that you can choose to activate or not, in order to build the application that suits you best: CRM, website, shop, accounting, inventory, HR, marketing...
Odoo can be a very powerful solution if you plan to
create a real management tool for your association. On the other hand, like
Hubspot, it is a tool that will require a significant configuration effort, and
its implementation must be accompanied by an expert. In addition, adding
additional modules can increase the bill very quickly! To find out more, read
our review of Odoo.
How much does a CRM for association cost?
The cost of a CRM for association varies greatly depending on the software: there are free CRMs, but the cost can also go up to several hundred euros per month, or even more! This is why it is important to study the prices carefully before making your choice. We summarize below the prices of our selection of CRM software for associations.
To learn more, also see our article on the cost of CRM
software.