This post was originally written for and published on the Amperative blog.
Modern websites are no longer a simple source of information. For a lot of organisations they're key infrastructure, supplying services and running day-to-day operations. The amount of data flowing through the web grows every day, and without the right tooling it quickly becomes difficult to manage. Terms like CRM and integration get thrown around a lot, so let's look at what they actually mean and how they can benefit you.
The problem with too many tools
Most organisations have plenty of software, but very little of it talks to each other. MuleSoft's 2025 Connectivity Benchmark found that the average organisation runs 897 applications, yet only 29% are integrated. Charities face the same problem on a smaller scale.
The cost shows up in people's time. Asana found knowledge workers spending around 60% of their time on "work about work", such as searching for information and switching between apps.
CRMs
What is a CRM?
A Customer Relationship Management system is one place holding everything you know about the people you work with, whether they're donors, members, volunteers or beneficiaries. It gives you a single record per person, their history with you, reporting, automation and properly recorded consent.
Why do you need one?
Because otherwise knowledge lives in inboxes, spreadsheets and people's heads. Salesforce.org's Nonprofit Trends research found that 85% of the most digitally mature nonprofits met or exceeded their fundraising goals, compared with 66% of the least mature. Despite that, the Charity Digital Skills Report 2025 found only 44% of UK charities have a digital strategy. A CRM is a good place to start.
Use cases with a website
Your website is usually where a supporter first acts, so it should feed your CRM directly:
- Donation forms that log the gift and the Gift Aid declaration against the donor.
- Event bookings and memberships that sign people up and handle renewals.
- Newsletter sign-ups that store consent alongside the person.
- Volunteer applications that land in a workflow, not an inbox.
Gift Aid shows why this matters. HMRC research estimated up to £560 million a year in Gift Aid goes unclaimed. Recording declarations properly in your CRM makes that money much harder to lose.
Beacon CRM
Beacon is a CRM built for charities, covering fundraising, memberships, events, volunteering and grantmaking. It connects out of the box with Stripe, GoCardless, JustGiving, Mailchimp and Xero, and each integration works a little differently: JustGiving donations import automatically, Mailchimp unsubscribes stay in sync, and payments export to Xero when your finance team chooses.
As a Beacon implementation partner, we've helped charities get set up and connected, and it's a CRM we're comfortable recommending.
The tools around your CRM
Your CRM sits in the middle. Stripe and GoCardless take payments, JustGiving handles challenge fundraising, Mailchimp sends campaigns and Xero keeps the accounts. Connected to your CRM, they give you one view of each supporter without anyone retyping data.
Joined-up data also makes newer technology useful: the same MuleSoft research found 95% of organisations struggle to integrate AI into their existing processes. Any AI or reporting tool is only as good as the data it can see.
Why integrations are an investment
You spend up front and on upkeep, and the return comes in hours saved, fewer errors and income that no longer slips through the gaps.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Less manual data entry | Upfront cost to plan and build |
| Fewer errors and duplicates | Maintenance as third-party APIs change |
| One accurate view of each supporter | More reliance on your chosen vendors |
| Faster, more reliable reporting | Bad data in is still bad data out |
Where to start
- List your tools and where supporter or payment data lives.
- Find the double handling. Ask your team what they retype by hand.
- Pick one journey, usually online donations into the CRM.
- Clean your data first, so you don't automate the mess.
If you'd like help choosing a CRM or connecting it to your website, get in touch with us at Amperative. Joining up the tools behind a website is a big part of what we do.
References
- MuleSoft (2025). 2025 Connectivity Benchmark Report: key findings.
- Asana (2021). Anatomy of Work Index 2021: Work About Work Is Dominating in a Distributed World.
- Salesforce.org (2020). Nonprofit Trends Report, third edition.
- Amar, Z. and Ramsay, N. (2025). Charity Digital Skills Report 2025.
- ICAEW (2025). Surprising insights from the Charity Digital Skills Report 2025.
- HM Revenue & Customs (2018). Charitable giving and Gift Aid research.
- Beacon. Integrations.
- Beacon Guide. Connect your apps.