London, 14 February 2013 — The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) is looking to gain a better understanding of all its members, visitors and supporters with the implementation of a new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution by software and services firm Blackbaud. 

The RHS is dedicated to advancing horticulture and promoting good gardening, and runs a number of high profile events such as the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. In order to meet its 2013 strategic objectives, centered on being known, loved and trusted as the charity for all gardeners, it was clear that the organisation needed an integrated CRM system.

“Blackbaud CRM is a scalable and secure database that has the functionality the RHS needs,” said Dan Wolfe, Royal Horticultural Society’s director of members, art & media. “It provides a complete view of all our members, enabling us to see at a glance whether people have visited gardens, bought at retail, attended shows or are involved in other activities. We see Blackbaud and Blackbaud CRM as integral to our ongoing growth and development.”

The new implementation follows a thorough review of the RHS’s core applications. The review revealed that the existing CRM systems were preventing it from effective and consistent communication with members.

Following a tender process that included a number of leading CRM providers, Blackbaud CRM was selected by the RHS to be used across its more than 600-person staff. Blackbaud CRM is designed for the largest not-for-profit organisations and was recently named as the vendor winner in the annual CRM Watchlist for the second successive year. The RHS was attracted by Blackbaud’s sector expertise, the product’s flexibility, superior functionality and the ability to use it across the organisation.

“Our strategic objectives are dependent on us understanding and interacting with our members and visitors more effectively,” said Wolfe. “We needed an enterprise CRM system to support those objectives more successfully and a supplier fully understanding of the specific requirements we have as a membership organisation, visitor attraction and not-for-profit - Blackbaud is the right choice in both regards.” 

Blackbaud CRM combines membership, fundraising, online applications, actionable prospect research and analytics as well as multichannel direct marketing to allow the RHS to make better use of the data it holds on its more than 400,000 members.

The RHS also plans to streamline its operations by using Blackbaud CRM and customisations developed and written by Blackbaud to replace a number of other systems as well as the legacy CRM databases.

“Not-for-profits need to use their supporter data much more effectively and Blackbaud CRM is the ideal CRM database for a large membership organisation such as Royal Horticultural Society,” said Jerome Moisan, Blackbaud Europe’s managing director. “A truly enterprise-class CRM system, Blackbaud CRM will enable the RHS to proceed into 2013 with confidence that it can meet its strategic objectives and gain a deeper understanding of its members.”

Further information (external website)