Airtable as a CRM and database for small nonprofit
February 15, 2018
Airtable as a CRM and database for small nonprofit
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Airtable
As a small non-profit with a variety of programs and projects, we needed a database and CRM that could be tailored to different activities. We tried a few CRMs, but they were all too focused on a private sector sales model for our needs. After trying Airtable, we found it was customizable enough, without being complicated, to tailor to our specific data and tracking needs. We've only been using it for a few weeks, but it seems as though it is filling the void that we were missing for tracking contacts, properties, and projects we're working on and linking those various lists.
Pros
- The ability to link one set of records to another made it much easier for us to link things that other CRMs may not intuitively link.
- The ease of customization really makes it work for us, as the data and information we track is not something a lot of other orgs or companies would.
- The collaboration functions seem very useful. While we just started using these features, in early use, they seem as though they will make it easier for us to all share information across our small organization. This is big when we are all so busy that we may only cross paths a few times a week.
Cons
- I'd really like to see a feature to search for duplicate records within Airtable. Currently (unless I'm missing something), you have to sort your records and then manually search through for duplicates.
- It would be great to link records across bases. There may be some logistical reason for this, but you can only link records from one sheet to another if they are in the same base (essentially a workbook).
- As a nonprofit, we track different metrics than for-profit firms. Airtables biggest impact on our organization has been the ability to better understand who we are interacting with, who we are missing and need to interact with, and how those people/orgs impact our mission and geographic area.
- Airtable has allowed us to better plan our future activities by better understanding what we are doing today, who we are engaged with, who we are not.
Salesforce was too sales driven. Being a nonprofit, that did not suit our needs. We simply wanted to create different lists of people, orgs, and properties and then connect them in different ways. Salesforce made this very difficult. We do use Google Drive for our cloud storage needs, but google sheets got too complicated with large datasets and multiple people interacting with them. Airtable is essentially a spreadsheet with more powerful features that allows us to better track our contacts, properties, and interactions in a shared environment.
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