TL;DR
- We focus on data migration (moving your data) and configuration (getting your platform set up to run for your org).
- Migration has three phases: review, mapping, and testing.
- Most migrations take a couple of months, depending on your data.
- You get a named specialist and an Implementation Manager throughout.
- Worried about staff time? We plan around your calendar and closures.
- Worried about losing data? You’ll know what moves before anything moves.
- Recurring donors keep giving. We start that process early.
So, you’re thinking about switching to Virtuous CRM+.
Whether you’re…
→ Coming from a legacy CRM that you can’t wait to shed
→ Or still questioning if it’s even worth the switch
…this is your no-nonsense guide to what it actually looks like when you join Virtuous.
I’m Eric, Senior Manager of Customer Implementation here at Virtuous. I’ve walked hundreds of customers as they’ve migrated from their old CRM to Virtuous CRM+. From my firsthand experience, I know that switching CRMs is not for the faint of heart.
With it comes questions, such as:
- Will I (and my staff) have time to learn a new platform?
- What if my staff doesn’t buy in?
- Will there be any surprise costs?
- What happens to all of our data?
- Will we lose anything during the migration?
In this post, we’ll face these questions head-on, so you can actually picture what it would be like to go through this change on a daily basis.
What Actually Happens When You Switch Nonprofit CRMs
Sometimes, it’s hard to picture something until you fully play it out. So, play this out with me:
You just decided to move forward with Virtuous CRM+.
These are the two steps I’d immediately start talking through with you:
- Step 1: Data Migration: The biggest piece of moving from a legacy system to Virtuous.
- Step 2: Configuration: Setting up your Virtuous database to match how your organization actually fundraises, and configuring the features that will help you grow more generosity.
Both require lots of detail and attention. So, let’s step through what this looks like at Virtuous.
Who You’ll Work With During Your Migration
The team supporting your CRM Migration and Configuration can be make-or-break for your success. At Virtuous, we assign an all-star onboarding team to support your organization, and curate a set of roles for your team to assign to work alongside us.
Virtuous Team
- Implementation Manager: This is your go-to contact for all things Virtuous after you begin your onboarding journey. Your assigned Implementation Manager serves as a product expert, project manager, and configuration specialist. You’ll meet them on the kickoff and see them plenty of times during onboarding workshops and check-ins.
- Data Migration Specialist: This contact will be assigned to your organization and will take the lead on your data migration. They will host a slate of discussions to get familiar with your data, and then map and load it into your Virtuous databases.
- Solutions Consultant: For organizations with more advanced or complex data migration and onboarding needs, a Solutions Consultant will be assigned to support your team through live training and strategy sessions.
Your Team
- Executive Sponsor: This person was involved in the Virtuous purchasing process and knows how Virtuous will be supporting your mission.
- Adoption Champion: This person will be coordinating the Implementation process for your team.
- Data Expert/Database Admin: This person is the expert on your legacy data and current database(s), and should arrive with an understanding of each source.
Step 1: Data Migration
One of the first questions I get is: What happens to my data when I migrate over to Virtuous CRM+?
When you switch to Virtuous CRM+, you can expect 3 phases of data migration:
- Data Review
- Data Mapping
- User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
Nonprofit Data Migration Phase 1: Data Review
Before the Migration Team begins working with your data, they need to become familiar with how your specific organization uses your database and structures your data. Our Migration Team is incredibly experienced with legacy systems and data structures, but they may have a few questions about how your team uses your specific data during this phase to ensure they get things right from the start!
Nonprofit Data Migration Phase 2: Data Mapping
In this phase, we take everything we uncovered during the data review…and put it into action.
Our team has migrated data from Raiser’s Edge, DonorPerfect, Bloomerang, and plenty of others. So when we recommend where a field should land, it’s based on having done it hundreds of times.
Oftentimes, organizations we work with have some amount of custom data in their legacy CRM. We’ll do some of the initial leg-work to map those based on our experience and collaborate with your team if there are elements of your custom data that require additional conversations. Customized data mapping is available within some of our onboarding packages, so feel free to surface that to our sales team!
Typically, phase 2 takes 1-2 weeks to complete.
Nonprofit Data Migration Phase 3: User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
Once the data mapping is finished, it’s time for your team to begin testing! Don’t worry; we don’t just deliver your test-ready database and wish you luck.
We guide you through something we call user acceptance testing (UAT), which just means the phase where we evaluate our mapping decisions and review your database to ensure that data from your legacy CRM was migrated correctly.
In this phase of your nonprofit data migration, we’ll guide you through areas to test out in your database. This part of the process is extremely personalized to your unique database.
Your Virtuous Data Migration Specialist will perform their own testing and validation to ensure it matches every goal we’ve discussed together.
But of course, you’re the top expert on your own data, so we highly encourage our customers to test and flag anything that doesn’t look quite right. Once this happens, you’ll have a collaborative testing session with your Data Migration Specialist to dig deeper into your findings and discuss solutions.
All in all, this process typically takes around 8-10 hours. We take our time here because we want the final result to be as high quality as possible for your team.
Step 2: Configuration
We recognize that onboarding to a new nonprofit CRM takes a lot more than just data migration. We ensure customer support every step of the way. Here’s how:
Virtuous Academy
As soon as you switch to Virtuous, you’ll get access to our online learning platform: Virtuous Academy.
Here, you’ll learn responsive fundraising strategies, get certified as a Virtuous expert, and earn CFRE credits.
You’ll become an expert in our products as you follow along with our video tutorials, which guide you step-by-step in how to get the most out of Virtuous CRM+, particularly Virtuous basics, campaigns, projects, and gift processing.
Workshops
In addition to Virtuous Academy, you’ll get access to workshops, which are a series of live calls hosted by your Implementation Manager.
In these calls, you’ll get direct guidance from your Implementation Manager…all personalized to your own data flow and features you use.
Typically, this starts with me saying, “Okay, let’s pull up your database.” And I provide hands-on guidance, stepping through our features and your setup.
Some examples of our workshops:
- Feature Setup: We walk through every feature on your agreement, what it’s built to do, then set it up together in your database.
- Campaigns: We whiteboard what a year of your campaigns actually looks like, then translate that into campaign, communication, and segment structure in Virtuous.
- Post-Live: Once your data is in, we cover your first import, publishing your giving form, and turning on your integrations.
- Integrations: We guide you through setup with all integrations you need connected to the platform. Some integrations are maintained by other vendors, but we’ll do our best to advise you based on what we know!
Live Training Hours
Not every organization needs the same amount of support. Based on the complexity of your data, there are a few different pathways we can take during onboarding, and some of them include additional customized training hours for things like campaigns, gift processing, and reporting.
If your setup is more involved, we’ll talk through which pathway fits before we start.
Nonprofit CRM Migration FAQs
Okay, so we’ve walked through what steps we’ll follow during your migration and onboarding process with Virtuous CRM+.
Now, let’s cover some common questions I hear from our customers all the time.
What’s the Difference Between “Live” & “Onboarding Complete”?
Live in Virtuous = Legacy data is migrated over into the platform
Migration is a huge step in the process, and completing migration unlocks the ability to complete your final setup items with help from the Virtuous team.
Onboarding complete in Virtuous = following our proven steps to be set up for success in the platform.
For onboarding complete, we have a list of milestones we guide our customers through:
- Processing your first gift import in Virtuous CRM+
- Configuring all integrations in the platform
- Publishing your giving form
- Getting familiar with the Responsive Dashboard
We know from our experience that if you, as our customer, get help completing all of these tasks, you’ll be more likely to feel confident using Virtuous in the day-to-day. Your Implementation Manager will guide you through each of these steps, so you have support through all of these adoption-related tasks.
How Long Does Nonprofit CRM Migration Take?
This is a common question, but it’s not one we give a blanket answer to.
Overall, most nonprofit CRM migrations take a couple of months. And typically, we wait to give you a firmer number until our sales team has reviewed what data is in your legacy CRM.
Three things shape your timeline.
- Your data: Custom fields, collections, and relationships you’ve built up over the years.
- Your calendar: Your events, your busy season, when your staff takes vacation.
- How involved your onboarding pathway needs to be, which follows from the first two. More complex migrations often include more time for testing, or multiple test instances.
So, ask about timing during your sales conversation, not after you’ve signed. If a vendor hands you a firm timeline before they’ve looked at your database, they’re most likely guessing.
Who Cleans Up the Messy Data?
Our team likes to say: We’re movers, not cleaners.
We help you move your data from one house to the other. And while your house will be getting an upgrade, your data doesn’t automatically get fixed just by being in a nicer house.
So, what do you do if you know your data is not in good shape?
Ultimately, it’s our goal for you to make sure you’re set up for success in your new CRM. So, throughout the process, we’ll have lots of conversations centered around what we can do for your data during the process.
If it’s not something we can offer as part of the onboarding process, we’ll refer you to our Professional Services. Our nonprofit data management experts handle the messy parts, from duplicate records to disconnected pledges to inconsistent campaign naming, so you can reach out to donors knowing your data is clean.
What Happens to Gifts That Come in During the Migration Window?
One of the most common questions I hear is about what happens to gifts that come in during the migration window. Here’s how it works:
For the majority of migration, you’ll continue entering gift/contact data into your legacy CRM as usual. As we prepare to deliver your “live” database containing your migrated data, there will be a period of time between the data pull and the final Virtuous migrated database.
We always try to keep this window as short as possible, ideally during a time of expected low gift volume. This usually spans just a couple of days.
The fix: We provide Virtuous import templates for you to fill out that cover all gifts received during this gap period. Then, in a post-live workshop, we’ll step you through exactly how to process those through our easy-to-use gift & contact import tool.
What I find is that this is a common concern, but then, the average amount of gifts that come in during this period is usually minimal and easily managed.
What Happens to Recurring Donors and Payment Info?
During onboarding, we’ll strategize with you on your recurring gift migration. And we’ll step you through getting your new giving form published on your website, so you can accept new donations through Virtuous right off the bat.
With recurring migration, it pays to start early, and this is something we’ll put into motion for you as soon as your migration starts.
To make your recurring gift migration as seamless as possible, I suggest you take note of where your tokens (payment information, usually credit card or ACH tokens) are held. You’ll then want to determine where your “schedules” are held – sometimes these are different locations! With that information, your Implementation Manager can help advise your process.
Which Integrations Get Set Up During Onboarding?
Many integrations must be done post-live…once the dataset is migrated into your CRM instance. This prevents the bulk of your historical information from being pushed into your accounting platform, for example.
Once your migration is completed, we’ll guide you through how to set up all integrations needed, and we even have a workshop/live call dedicated just to integrations. We’ll also have strategic conversations during onboarding around how these integrations will inform your data mapping.
How Much Time Will My Team Actually Spend On This Migration?
Some questions I commonly hear:
- How much time will this actually take?
- What if this will take up too much staff time?
- What if I don’t have enough staff to help with this transition?
The answers to these questions vary by team and organization, but here are some helpful details:
→ If you’re engaged throughout the process and transparent about your workload throughout, we’re going to lean in and help as much as we can to make sure you’re set up for success.
→ We plot the project around staff vacations, office closures, workload, events, etc., so it’s at a convenient time for you and your team and so the timing can move as efficiently as possible.
→ Think of your Implementation Manager throughout the process as an accountability partner for you during this process. If you get off track during the onboarding process, we’ll help you get back to your goals because we want you to get value from the platform.
What to Ask Any Nonprofit CRM Vendor About Onboarding & Migration
Before you sign with any nonprofit CRM, including us, here are the questions I’d ask.
Will I have a Data Migration Specialist assigned to me by name?
Not every vendor assigns one. At Virtuous, every customer gets a specific person who reviews your legacy data with you, maps it alongside you, and does their own testing before you ever see the database.
Will you help me export my data, or is that on me?
Getting data out of a legacy system is harder than it sounds, and not every vendor supports you through it. We do.
Is data migration collaborative, or do I just hand you a spreadsheet?
Get really specific when you ask this one. A lot of vendors will take a spreadsheet you compiled, load it into their platform, and send the platform back to you. A more thorough approach is always preferred here.
How does testing work, and will you tell me what to check first?
There’s a real difference between getting access to a test database and getting guided through one. We call out specific areas for you to begin reviewing first because “go look at everything” isn’t a testing plan. Remember, testing is one of the most important aspects of migration so attention to detail from your team is paramount.
Is your support reactive or scheduled?
Plenty of vendors offer unlimited support during onboarding. That sounds generous, and it is. But unlimited support only helps if you already know what to ask. We curate and schedule workshops instead, because we know what tends to make customers successful before they run into trouble.
And one on timelines.
If a vendor tells you they can get you live in a month, ask what they’re leaving out. In my experience, it’s usually collaborative mapping, rigorous testing, and thorough adoption.
Change Is Hard. Falling Behind Is Harder.
I’ve talked to plenty of organizations that stayed on a system they’d outgrown because switching felt like too much. And I get it. But the cost of staying put is real. Manual tasks that eat your week, reports that only work if you export them to a spreadsheet, opportunities you can’t see because your data isn’t accurate enough to show them. You deserve better than that.
So yes, migration is hard. But you’re not doing it alone. At Virtuous, a real person migrates your data, a real person helps you get set up, and when onboarding wraps, you’re introduced to a customer success team that already knows what you went through.
Want to see what you’d be moving into?
Get a demo of Virtuous CRM+, and we can talk through what migration would look like for your database.
