Top Challenges

• 40 years of inconsistent donor data across disconnected systems

• No centralized visibility into donor engagement or activity

• Manual reporting slowed decisions and limited insight

• Teams using different systems with multiple logins

• Siloed staff leading to duplicate or uncoordinated outreach

The Virtuous Difference

• Transformed messy, inconsistent donor data into a clean, unified system.

• Utilized 360-degree view of donors, centralizing all donor engagement activity into a single, accessible platform.

• Automated dashboards and scheduled reports via Virtuous Analytics.

• Empowered all teams to self-serve data with the easy-to-use Query Tool.

• Replaced fragmented systems and logins with one collaborative CRM+ environment.

Courage to Break Free From a 40-Year Legacy System to a Clean, Modern CRM

The Foundation Fighting Blindness has been bringing hope to those impacted by vision loss through research, driving treatments and cures since 1971. And for 40 of those years, they had been using the same legacy system for storing donor data. 

So, with that much data accumulated and organized in various methods, they found themselves held back by inconsistent data practices and a lack of clarity on how to use the information they were storing. 

Spurred by this frustration, they began a year-long journey of cleaning up their data. At the same time, they knew they’d need to find a new CRM to support their new approach. 

When they were evaluating new products, they wanted to find a CRM that could grow with them, not one that just kept them looking back. 

They became intrigued by Virtuous’s ease of use and simple data integration within the platform. Additionally, they were drawn to Responsive Fundraising, which represents the heart of the Virtuous platform and places donor relationships at the center of all fundraising practices. 

Knowing they wanted to prioritize donor relationships and clean data, Virtuous felt like the perfect fit. Now, the Foundation Fighting Blindness uses their clean data to ensure accurate, personalized contact with the donors who support them. 

A New, Personalized Approach to Fundraising

While data served as the impetus behind the search for a new CRM, the Foundation Fighting Blindness quickly found themselves expanding their toolkit within Virtuous to accelerate their fundraising.

Prioritizing donor personalization, integrated email and activity tracking via the Responsive Listener became go-to features. 

The Responsive Listener is a tracking tool in Virtuous CRM+ that captures website visitor behavior, links it to donor records, and powers personalized experiences like smart gift arrays and tailored engagement based on individual donor interactions.

With these tools, what once resembled a one-size-fits-all approach has transformed into deeply personalized, donor-led engagement. 

Theresa Clark, Associate Director of Donor Data and Analytics at the Foundation Fighting Blindness, described how they can now see the full donor journey…everything from website visits to email engagements…and how this ultimately leads to stronger relationships with their donors. 

Now, their team actively aligns outreach with each donor’s unique preferences. If a donor is only interested in attending events, that’s exactly what they’ll hear about. If a supporter prefers email communication, all other channels adjust accordingly. As a result, they continuously build trust with their supporters, showing that they’re truly listening.

Unifying Teams in One Integrated Platform

Prior to switching to Virtuous, the Foundation Fighting Blindness relied on Tableau and Power BI, often facing persistent challenges with exporting and securely storing information. Additionally, they had to build everything in a completely separate system.

However, with operating a particularly active events program alongside robust major and mid-level giving programs, alignment across teams is essential. Now, tapping into the power of Virtuous Analytics, every staff member has unified access to the same real-time dashboards and automated reports.

Theresa shared how this has strengthened cross-team collaboration, specifically in donor engagement. With everyone able to view donor activity and contact history, teams are better equipped to coordinate their efforts. For example, if one team member is cultivating a donor relationship, others can log in and immediately see what outreach has already taken place with that contact.

Using Reporting to Roll Out a Board-Level, 15-Metric Dashboard

The Foundation Fighting Blindness took the capabilities within Virtuous’s Query Tool and ran with it. Coming from a reporting background herself, Theresa appreciates how even users with a basic reporting background can easily navigate the Query Tool.

Using the query tool to pull such specific reports has brought new clarity to how they track both short- and long-term objectives and helped them prioritize what’s most important to share with leadership.

To keep executive leadership informed, Theresa schedules three reports each month for the executive team, giving leadership the flexibility to engage with the data in the format that works best for them.

For managers, they’ve built individual dashboards, providing each manager with a quick snapshot of their employees and fundraisers, so they can support performance and engagement more effectively.

For major donors, they use reporting in Virtuous to ensure every major gift is handled with precision and care. For example, when a transaction over $10,000 is received, an automated alert is sent to the director of development and key staff. This allows the team to review the coding right away and follow up with prompt, personalized acknowledgment, reinforcing donor trust and ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.

A Partner to Help You Become a “Leader in the Nonprofit Space” 

The Foundation Fighting Blindness left behind siloed systems and legacy data, replacing them with a modern, intuitive analytics engine that could power their fresh approach to data and a relationship-centered donor outreach style. 

Now it’s your turn. Discover how Virtuous Analytics can help your team:

→ Eliminate data chaos with turnkey dashboards and predictive insights.

→ Align every department with shared KPIs and scheduled reporting.

→ Move from manual reporting to mission-driven intelligence.

Let’s talk about your goals and how Virtuous Analytics can accelerate them.

Schedule a demo of Virtuous Analytics.