Book Image

Using CiviCRM - Second Edition

By : Hommel, Murray, P Shaughnessy
Book Image

Using CiviCRM - Second Edition

By: Hommel, Murray, P Shaughnessy

Overview of this book

CiviCRM provides a powerful toolbox of resources to help organizations manage relationships with constituents. It is free, open source, web-based, and geared specifically to meet the constituent relationship management needs of the not-for-profit sector. Beginning with broader questions about how your organization is structured, which existing workflows are critical to your operations, and the overarching purpose of a centralized CRM, the book proceeds step by step through configuring CiviCRM, understanding the choices when setting up the system, importing data, and exploring the breadth of tools available throughout the system. You will see how to best use this software to handle event registrations, accept and track contributions, manage paid and free memberships and subscriptions, segment contacts, send bulk e-mails with open and click-through tracking, manage outreach campaigns, and set up case management workflows that match your organization’s roles and rules. With specific emphasis on helping implementers ask the right questions, consider key principals when setting up the system, and understand usage through case studies and examples, the book comprehensively reviews the functionality of CiviCRM and the opportunities it provides. With this book, you can help your organization better achieve its mission as a charity, industry association, professional society, political advocacy group, community group, government agency, or other similar organization and position yourself to become a power user who efficiently and effectively navigates the system.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
15
Index

Chapter 6. Communicating Better

Central to the success of your organization is its ability to communicate effectively. Though CiviCRM doesn't replace the hard work of crafting content and strategies, it does provide powerful tools to facilitate your communication efforts. This chapter begins by briefly reviewing how your communication efforts can improve your constituent relationships. We then outline the following topics:

  • Looking at your communication
  • Sending e-mails to one or more constituents
  • Printing address labels
  • Organizing constituents into groups for bulk mailing
  • Sending bulk e-mails and SMS messages
  • Setting up a template for bulk e-mails
  • Customizing the templates for system workflow messages
  • Recording e-mails sent to constituents from your normal e-mail client

If you're just interested in the mechanics of how to use CiviCRM to communicate with constituents, feel free to skip the next section, where we discuss the principles and concepts of effective communication.