If you’ve been following along this year you’ll know two co-ops have recently tested two different capital campaign data management systems this winter/spring…and the results are in.
Rooted Carrot Co-op Market (RCCM)
RCCM tested a data management system, cleverly named SOIL (System of Ownership and Investment Lists) by their awesome volunteers. SOIL worked via a virtual desktop and the RCCM campaign ran from February 1 to March 31. The system itself proved useful and testing identified improvements, but the virtual desktop was unreliable and expensive, making the long term viability of SOIL unsustainable.
Prairie Food Co-op (PFC)
Many of you may remember seeing a demo of the app co-designed by Jess Buttimer of Prairie Food Co-op and Katie Novak at Up & Coming a few years ago. Prairie Food Co-op recently put that app to the test for their March 15- May 15 capital campaign with positive results. The app is based in AppSheet, a cloud based platform that doesn’t require a costly (or unreliable) virtual desktop and is much more affordable. Nine out of ten users at PFC said they would recommend the app to other co-ops. In fact, one user said “The app itself is pretty intuitive if you have used CRM software before. I found it very easy to use to track my calling progress.”
And the Winner Is…Co-ops!
At the end of the day, co-ops are the winner here. The development, testing, revising and adjusting of both tools resulted in an end product called Co-App, which is the first ever Contact Relationship Management system designed specifically for co-ops by co-ops. There are lots of CRM’s on the market, but none are designed with the intricacies of food co-ops (think ownership shares, preferred shares, loans, interest rates, etc.) in mind. Co-App is a labor of love created by cooperative experts who share your values. If you want to learn more about Co-App, please email us.
Big thanks to Rooted Carrot Co-op Market and Prairie Food Co-op for putting these systems to work and providing honest feedback to improve the tools. Thanks to these co-ops and their willingness to try a new system, we now have a viable app that is designed for co-ops, by co-ops. Both co-ops had phenomenal success in their capital campaigns testing each of these tools, together raising $1.7 million dollars in the last three months! Go Co-ops!
