Users drive our CRM’s new features, but what is that like for them?

From our company founder, Baird Straughan:

In 2008 I started WaterGrass thinking that we would just provide support and training so that small organizations could use Salesforce’ basic features to recruit and grow their volunteer and donor bases. That would suffice, I thought.

But within a couple years I was programming a custom interface to ensure donations were entered correctly. Katie Shaddix at Alabama Rivers Alliance had asked for it, repeatedly. It took us a year to take her request seriously, and another to get the buttons and sub-features to her satisfaction, but now the “Enter Account Contact Contribution” interface is probably the most heavily used part of WaterGrass.

We followed with the “Process Participant List” module, to make it easier for the Rock Creek Conservancy to quickly compile sign-in sheets after volunteer events with thousands of participants. That’s been through four iterations since.

Our clients’ then nudged us to create:

• Registration pages for multiple shifts;
• Waitlists for events;
• Maps of storm drains, macroinvertebrate samples and organization donors;
• A front-to-back process allowing volunteers to propose and run their own events;
• A custom integration with a fundraising platform to bring in more information about every donation;
• … etc etc.

What we thought would be a bare bones Salesforce installation now has 1.2 million characters of custom code across four computing languages. There’s hardly a feature that didn’t begin with a user request.

For us, our tenacious clients have been a godsend, holding us to the vision of a CRM that fits and sustains their vital work. 

But what’s that like for them?

We asked Jason Frenzel of the Huron River Watershed Council and Wendy Lotze of Arizona Trail Association, two of our collaborators who have worked with us to develop various new features.

“There are two types of databases an organization can use. 1. Off the shelf and in a box. 2. Customized. They both have their strengths and weaknesses. Off the shelf you know exactly what you are and aren’t getting. And typically there’s no deviating from that. Also, customer service is often poor. Customized databases are exactly that and often have great customer support. Most customized databases are amazingly expensive. WaterGrass gives you all the benefits of customized databases and the cost is quite reasonable.

Working with the WaterGrass team on customization has allowed the Huron River Watershed Council to get exactly what we want out of the data, database, and interface. Often for a few hundred dollars we are able to make a substantive improvement to functionality. It takes a real investment in staff time, but it’s well worth the improved functionality and/or efficiency. Plus, we get to work with peer organizations in doing so!”

Jason Frenzel, Volunteer & Stewardship Coordinator for the Huron River Watershed Council

“One of the most rewarding aspects of working on custom structures with the Watergrass team is the way it allows us to examine our workflow. I’ve found myself implementing certain policies as a way to work around dysfunctional data collection – and I didn’t even realize how inefficient we’d become until I walked through the “why” we do it that way. The team at Watergrass kept asking us why we wanted certain things and what our end goals were which encouraged greater efficiency and reduced steps.”  

Wendy Lotze, Director of Volunteer Programs, Arizona Trail Association

The unexpressed downside for our clients is the commitment and effort required to fit the database to their organization, to work with us and to evangelize amongst colleagues so that the new software is adopted. 

And there is the unpredictable timeline. We do our best to scope out the project precisely, but as we near completion and users try out the beta product, they inevitably have more suggestions, which pushes the timeline back. We could insist on simply completing the project as originally scoped out, but that turns out to be a mistake. All those small touches that our clients suggest are the difference between a product that gets used and one that doesn’t. So we’ve learned to embrace them.

The members of the WaterGrass team have worked at the kinds of conservation nonprofits we now serve, so this process of fitting a database to user needs is a natural extension of our previous jobs – a way to meet some of the needs we ourselves experienced. But it’s really the client organizations that make this possible, and it’s exciting to work with them to realize their visions.