CRM Architecture & Marketing Automation

for a non-profit foundation

My client was a non-profit foundation providing educational services to organizations across multiple disciplines — lectures, events, consultations, and publications reaching over 400,000 people annually through more than 3,000 client organizations.
Their operations were managed through Excel spreadsheets and notes, making it difficult to track client history or scale their services. My goal was to design a unified system that connected every post, department, and service into one coherent workflow — from first contact to long-term client relations.

My Role

I didn’t build the CRM software itself — I built the blueprint behind it.
To do so, I mapped the entire client journey and internal operations, including:

Lead generation and promotion processes
Sales and account management workflows
Event planning, delivery, and post-event follow-up
Product and service structures
Data management, quality control, and testimonial collection

The System

From this analysis, I developed an information architecture and operational flow mapping all service lines, data dependencies, and client lifecycle stages.

Key outcomes:

A client-centered relational data model, where each record — or “client worksheet” — such as a book purchase, sales meeting, event attendance, or sign-up, was linked to an individual client profile.
This setup made it possible to filter and analyze data from any perspective — for example, clients who attended a specific event, purchased a certain material in January, or received services but haven’t yet submitted a testimonial.
Clear visibility of each client’s full history and engagement with the organization
Tailored access for every role, ensuring each post had the exact tools and inputs they needed
Senior management gained a real-time, cross-departmental dashboard of the organization — tracking client engagement, campaign performance, sales conversion, delivery efficiency, and key business metrics.

Execution and role

I led end-to-end discovery across executives, sales, operations, quality, and clients; defined reporting goals; and met directly with the CRM company’s owner to select the right partner. After co-developing an initial draft with their specialist to fully understand the system’s capabilities, I took over and built out the final version myself — aligning every function with my original blueprint and integrating it with landing pages for automatic lead capture.

I structured the CRM around relational links between clients, services, events, and sales interactions, enabling multi-dimensional filtering and reporting. The project transformed fragmented operations into a scalable, data-driven system, reducing administrative workload and empowering smarter sales and marketing decisions.

I acted as both system architect and implementation lead, ensuring alignment between business goals, user needs, and technical execution.

Implementation

Created “hats” (guides and training materials) for every post on how to use the CRM effectively
Led a data migration project — hiring and managing a small team to clean and structure years of Excel data and notes into six organized categories
Connected marketing and CRM systems to automate lead flow and reporting

Results

4× increase in online sign-ups within the first marketing campaign (166 sign-ups from 5 emails)
Shifted client acquisition from manual sales to automated marketing and CRM tracking
The system has been in use for over 7 years with only minor structural updates — proof of its scalability and effectiveness

In parallel, I managed a market research initiative on the company’s prospective clients to refine audience segmentation and messaging. Based on these insights, I designed and executed a targeted email campaign — achieving a 4× increase in online sign-ups and shifting lead generation from manual outreach to data-driven marketing.