The Lung Foundation has many donors and works with many companies. In addition, they have relationships with lung patients, with health care organizations, with politics and media, who, for example, come to get knowledge to base social discussions on.
Janina Kroese, manager business intelligence at The Lung Foundation: “Our audience varies enormously. Everyone is important. We want and must serve every interested party well, with precisely the right information, preferably tailored to the individual. Data is the crux of the matter, we quickly agreed. But we ourselves – like the whole world of fundraising – do not have the right expertise. We needed external expertise to become more data-driven.”
A trusted partnership
There was work to be done. There had to be a strategically thought-out roadmap, the IT infrastructure had to be improved, the data connected, and meanwhile the shop floor continued to need selections and insights on a daily basis. And there too, on the shop floor, a broader understanding of data had to emerge and selections could be made more quickly and easily. All in all, there was no set plan. There was a direction, but the blueprint and the route to it still had to be made. The Lung Foundation was not looking for a consultant for a defined project, but a partner. A partner with strategic data expertise and operational clout, but above all a partner who could embark on the adventure together. To bear the responsibility together.
Janina Kroese: “With Cmotions we soon felt in good hands. Exactly the partner we wanted. They think along with us and take on whatever is necessary to realize our common goal.”
Get the basics right
After the roadmap was drawn, the collaboration focused mainly on the basics: the data. The Lung Foundation had a lot of data, but they were scattered across the ERP, a marketing database and a campaign tool. This made selections very laborious and they could easily take two weeks to complete. In close cooperation with The Lung Foundation, Cmotions built a central data platform in the cloud, set up the data flows between the systems and improved all exchanges. In the process, insight into the data and pollution such as duplicates became visible. These could be dealt with immediately. They also added new data sources, which not only made the data more accessible and of good quality, but also made it richer.
Janina Kroese: “The nice thing about Cmotions is that they took the time to calmly explain the considerations and all the consequences, so that we could understand the choices. And so that our people really understood how links between programs function. It is this sharing of knowledge and working together that makes us feel more mature as an organization in the field of data.”
Professionalizing the organization
The next phase focused on how the organization handled data. On the one hand, this involved making the selections. Cmotions helped with a more user-friendly setup of PowerBI. And seconded a talented database marketer who thought along and made smart selections for the organization. On the other hand, Cmotions and Lung Foundation worked together to create a broader awareness within the organization on what you can do with data. A new ‘relationships & data’ team was set up and ‘channel specialists’ came in, each collecting insights into relationships with the target group. Cmotions helped them to become familiar with programs and shared knowledge about the interpretation of data.
Janina Kroese: “Very practically, Cmotions also helped us to build a new prediction model, which helps us to predict the impact of certain activities. Very valuable for us because we develop so many activities. Our old model was a black box and did not suffice anymore. Together we built a transparent model that we can control ourselves, so that we understand how predictions are made. I think that’s typical of our partnership: they help us really understand the complexity of data.”
Data in workflows
Data has already proven its value to the organization in various areas, for example in prioritizing activities. Next step is to apply the data in the work processes. For example, so that The Lung Foundation can tailor information on the website to the individual visitor. The organization can also start thinking multichannel and adapt the various channels to the individual and the stage in the customer journey. For this, some steps still need to be gone through, for example the existing customer journeys need to be refined and applied to the website. But basically The Lung Foundation is ready for it. All those involved are looking forward to it!
