WHYY
Product Manager
ROI Solutions
Client Spotlight:
WHYY's High-Touch Fundraising in Revolution CRM
The Challenge:
Building a CRM-Centered Fundraising Culture
WHYY’s nine-member donor relations team manages a robust high-touch donor program, supporting mid-level, major, and planned giving efforts. With personalized donor relationships at the core of their mission, they needed a CRM that could enable meaningful engagement at scale—while also encouraging adoption from gift officers accustomed to legacy workflows. This has become even more important with public media funding challenges, which increasingly rely more on larger donations to make up for other shrinking funding sources.
“Getting frontline fundraisers to fully embrace the CRM was initially a challenge,” says Nathalie Bessette, Donor Relations Operations and Communications Specialist at WHYY. “Some of them have decades of experience, going back to the days of doing everything on paper.”
Gift officers were still using Excel or handwritten notes for prospect management, entering touchpoints into Revolution CRM after outreach had occurred. The goal, Nathalie says, was to change that: “We wanted them to rely more heavily on the CRM. Not just as a place to store data, but as a live tool that supports their day-to-day work.”
The Tactic:
Smart Accountability Without Micromanagement
About two years ago, WHYY introduced a lightweight tracking initiative to encourage consistent CRM usage. Nathalie began sending quarterly data entry summaries to the team as helpful prompts: “Here’s how everyone’s doing.”
This approach was reinforced with smart tooling, through SQL-driven portfolio reports flagging any assigned donor without a logged touch point in the last 90 days, helping Nathalie determine whether the gift officer reached out, or just didn’t log it. Year-to-Date outreach reports track individual fundraising over time, helping leadership observe trends and gaps.
“Most of the time, they’ve done the work—they just forgot to log it. These reports help us close that loop.” Nathalie told us.
The Solution:
Right Tools & Right People
WHYY has embraced a culture of smart delegation to support high-volume, high-personalization work with a lean team.
They’ve given trusted volunteers basic CRM access, enabling gift officers to forward donor emails for logging. WHYY also uses Revolution’s custom reporting, high-touch plans, and Unite Analytics to balance portfolios, visualize donor geography, and prioritize relationships.
A weekly script flags donors who cross giving thresholds so they can be assigned and qualified promptly, ensuring no one falls through the cracks.
What’s Next:
Bulk Entry, Better Snapshots, and Shared Templates
WHYY is excited by Revolution CRM enhancements that speak directly to their needs:
- Bulk Uploading High-Touch Plans and Activities: “This is huge for us,” says Nathalie. “Entering each one individually is time-consuming. I’m thrilled for this because it helps us to make changes at scale.”
- Improved Constituent Snapshots and Profiles: The Touchpoints screen displays a summary of recent interactions between the organization and constituents from across the system. This view enables fundraisers to quickly understand the relationship history before engaging with donors, thereby preventing communication gaps when multiple team members interact with the same constituent. “We’re always looking for ways to find the right balance between detailed and summarized views.”
- Enhanced Dynamic Filtering Options: List views of data with dynamic filtering, particularly in portfolios and relationship listings, “allow gift officers to work in the system without relying on others to help them pull reports,” says Nathalie.
WHYY is experimenting with additional ways to streamline views within Revolution CRM and Unite Analytics.
Client Perspective & Takeaway
“Revolution CRM allows us to be highly tailored in our outreach,” says Nathalie. “It’s not just about logging information, it’s about being able to act on it in smart, thoughtful ways.”
With intentional leadership, custom tools, and a collaborative spirit, WHYY is showing how high-touch fundraising can thrive at scale, supported by technology that grows with them.
The Takeaway: Tech That Supports Relationships, Not Replaces Them
At WHYY, Revolution CRM isn’t just a database—it’s an active part of their relationship-building strategy. Through a mix of clear processes, customized reporting, and strong internal collaboration, the team has created a culture where the CRM adds value instead of overhead.
From surfacing lapsed contacts to empowering volunteers to share the data load, WHYY is making strategic use of Revolution CRM’s flexibility to maintain—and deepen—donor connections. As new features like bulk activity uploads and improved donor snapshots roll out, the team is well-positioned to continue evolving their program without sacrificing the personal touch that makes it successful.
Revolution CRM is helping WHYY do more than manage data—it’s helping them manage meaningful donor relationships.
