How a Statewide Advocacy Organization Turned an Underused CRM into a Growth Engine
A case study in stabilizing EveryAction, reducing risk, and creating a clear path to growth.
Client Snapshot
Organization: CleanAIRE NC (learn more about CleanAIRE NC)
Organization Type: Statewide environmental advocacy nonprofit
Size: Small team (under 50 people)
System: EveryAction CRM
ABS Role: Tech assessment and fractional CRM leadership
The Situation
CleanAIRE NC had invested significantly in EveryAction, but the system wasn’t delivering on its promise.
Core CRM features were either unconfigured or misconfigured. Essential automations—such as welcome emails, donation acknowledgments, and renewal reminders—were missing or disabled. Event registration lived across disconnected forms, making reporting and follow-up difficult.
Leadership lacked clear visibility into donor behavior, engagement patterns, and retention signals.
Compounding the issue, a migration error had mixed fundraising and general ledger codes, creating a high-risk data cleanup problem. The organization also didn’t have the internal capacity to both stabilize the system and move it forward.
The result was a powerful CRM that felt risky to touch and exhausting to manage.
Why This Mattered
This wasn’t just a system configuration issue.
Donor engagement and retention opportunities were being missed
Manual work limited staff capacity and focus
Staff adoption was very low - they used other methods to track their information
Leadership made decisions without reliable behavioral insight
Data quality risk increased over time
A major CRM investment wasn’t supporting organizational growth
Without intervention, EveryAction would remain a cost center—not a strategic asset.
How ABS Helped
Anchored Business Strategies approached the engagement with a clear mindset: stabilize → clarify → build.
Rather than rushing into new features, we focused first on understanding how CleanAIRE actually operated:
Listened to staff across fundraising, communications, and operations
Evaluated CRM configuration, workflows, and data health
Separated urgent risks from longer-term opportunities
The goal was to create immediate relief and a realistic roadmap the team could sustain—without adding staff or unnecessary complexity.
What We Did
Conducted a comprehensive EveryAction CRM audit
Designed and administered a staff-wide CRM assessment survey
Interviewed key stakeholders to uncover operational and data challenges
Identified critical configuration gaps and underutilized features
Stabilized data flows and corrected high-risk automation issues
Designed priority donor journeys (welcome, acknowledgments, renewals)
Consolidated event registration and reporting structures
Delivered a crawl → walk → run CRM roadmap aligned to fundraising and engagement goals
The Results
Leadership gained clear visibility into CRM issues—backed by data, not anecdotes
Immediate stabilization reduced risk and restored confidence in the system
CleanAIRE received a prioritized, actionable roadmap instead of a generic wish list
Manual communication gaps were clearly identified and sequenced for automation
ABS was retained to implement the roadmap, extending the engagement
Most importantly, the CRM shifted from a source of hesitation to a platform that leadership felt confident investing in.
Why This Worked
This engagement succeeded because the work focused on clarity before configuration.
By grounding recommendations in real workflows, staff capacity, and organizational goals, CleanAIRE avoided:
Overengineering
Tool churn
Automations teams couldn’t maintain
Instead, they gained a CRM strategy that matched where they were, and where they were headed.
If This Sounds Familiar
If your organization has invested in a CRM that feels underused, fragile, or overwhelming, the solution isn’t another tool.
You need a clear plan, steady leadership, and systems that support growth—not slow it down.
Anchored Business Strategies helps nonprofits stabilize their systems, engage donors more effectively, and move forward with confidence.
Let’s talk!
