The Virtuous Difference
- Deduplicated 16,000 contacts in 3 days.
- Used automation and Virtuous BI reporting to consolidate staff, which more than offset the cost of Virtuous.
- Increased monthly donors by 20% using Virtuous’s new donor journey email automation.
- Switched CRMs without disruption, leaning on Virtuous onboarding to quickly launch automated donor outreach and focus staff time where it mattered most.
Top Challenges Animal Humane Association of New Mexico Needed to Address:
- Migrating from a legacy CRM and training new staff to adapt to a new, modern CRM.
- 16,000 duplicate contacts and poor data hygiene.
- Drowning in hours of manual work–tasks that could have been automated were consuming valuable time.
- Missing connection points at the beginning of their donors’ journeys.
Seamless Onboarding From a Legacy CRM
The team at Animal Humane Association of New Mexico had no problem putting in the work to provide food and shelter for cats and dogs of New Mexico. But as manual data tasks piled up and poor data quality limited insight, they knew it was time to move on from their legacy CRM.
Upgrading to a modern, AI-powered CRM felt intimidating, especially because it required a token migration, the secure transfer of all donors’ stored credit card information from their previous payment processor into Virtuous. Even with this challenge, they moved forward and joined Virtuous in December 2024.
By taking full advantage of…
- Weekly trainings
- Customer service with response times under 24 hours
- Live office hours
- Virtuous Academy–our digital educational platform for customers
- Ongoing access to their dedicated rep for strategic check-ins…
…they prioritized quick and seamless onboarding, enabling them to personalize donor outreach at scale right from the start.
“We had weekly trainings…led by a Virtuous representative who [was] amazing in [showing us] all of the opportunities that Virtuous [has to] offer. It’s just been incredible for my team. And the migration…was really smooth.” — Pamela Weese Powell, Director of Development and Marketing at Animal Humane Association of New Mexico
Many nonprofits let the fear of switching CRMs keep them stuck with outdated tools, but Animal Humane Association of New Mexico faced that fear head-on and discovered a future where hours of manual work were replaced with time-saving automation and smarter data.
Cleaning 16K Duplicates and Reclaiming 10+ Hours a Month
Once onboarded, Animal Humane Association of New Mexico turned their focus to a critical challenge: data hygiene. After more than a decade in a legacy CRM, they arrived at Virtuous with years of cluttered data and inefficient workflows. The ripple effects were felt everywhere—from reports to mass communications, where even simple queries could lead to costly mistakes.
In fact, once they switched to Virtuous, they discovered 16,000 duplicate contacts along with multiple points of misinformation among the 10 team members. With guidance from Virtuous, they went from 16,000 to zero duplicates in just three days. And they’re able to maintain this level of data hygiene every day using Virtuous’s Data Health Dashboard and Merge Suggestions.
“If you don’t [switch to a modern CRM] now, you’re going to be falling behind…[W]e should have done it two years ago.” — Pamela Weese Powell, Director of Development and Marketing at Animal Humane Association of New Mexico
And with healthier data, the team at Animal Humane Association of New Mexico quickly noticed hours being added back to their days. Pamela Weese Powell, the Director of Development and Marketing, used to regularly stay at work past 5:00 p.m., knee deep in manual tasks. Now, she saves herself 10 hours a month by using Virtuous.
The time they earned back eventually allowed them to consolidate data staff, which more than offset the cost of Virtuous.
The hours once lost to manual tasks—building reports, running queries, and wrangling spreadsheets—were now reclaimed, allowing their team to refocus their energy on what matters most: giving New Mexico’s dogs and cats a second chance at life.
“I’d quit [if I had to go back to my old CRM] because…it would create total chaos for us. We’re so ingrained in the way that we’re working now, and nobody would [want to] go back to what we were doing before.” — Pamela Weese Powell, Director of Development and Marketing at Animal Humane Association of New Mexico
Personalized Automation Quickly Boosted Giving
As soon as they started using Virtuous, Animal Humane Association of New Mexico built a new donor welcome series and started automating this for all new donors. Now, just seven months later, they’ve seen a 20% increase in monthly donors.
They’re also continually working to improve their donor outreach, adding multimedia features to their automation, such as video clips using the drag-and-drop builder, enhancing the way they tell their story and the stories of the animals they serve.
“[If you’re not upgrading to a modern CRM], you will be falling behind with all of the other organizations that are using platforms like [Virtuous]. Now’s the time to do it.” — Pamela Weese Powell, Director of Development and Marketing at Animal Humane Association of New Mexico
Falling Behind is Harder Than Switching CRMs
Just like Animal Humane Association of New Mexico, you can spend less time with manual, antiquated tasks and more time on personalized contact with your supporters using Virtuous.
Schedule a demo now, and we’ll show you how keeping up with the times is easier than it sounds.
