The Brief
We were excited to hear from our long-time friends and clients at Counterfire about a new project on the horizon. They asked us to help streamline the internal systems they use to manage supporters, donations and their mailing list. Their goal is to boost donations and member engagement, which is essential to them as a grassroots activist organisation.
The Client
As a revolutionary socialist organisation, Counterfire is dedicated to transforming society from one driven by profit to one that prioritises the needs of working people. They believe real change comes from the working class organising to challenge their bosses and the government that supports them.
Our Solution
After looking into a few options, we settled on CiviCRM—a flexible open-source tool that works well for managing relationships with supporters and constituents. At Outlandish, we are experts in building CiviCRM-based solutions, ensuring that organisations like Counterfire can fully leverage its capabilities. The aim was to have CiviCRM replace several tools the team was using that didn’t work well together and had become unwieldy. Switching to a single tool also means lower operational costs, allowing Counterfire to invest more in its core mission: transforming society from one driven by profit to one centered on the needs of working people.
Image 1: Member subscription form
In a short and efficient mini-sprint, we set up a new CiviCRM instance, moved the existing data from GoCardless into the new system, and added Stripe and GoCardless as payment processors.
We also built a few forms:
Email Sign-Up
Member Subscription
Supporter Subscription
One-Off Donation
Image 2: Contribution summary
To manage Counterfire’s mailing list, we set up CiviMail, an email marketing tool integrated directly into CiviCRM. It’s a straightforward way to send newsletters, manage subscribers, and track basic campaign results. We used the Mosaico editor, making it easy to create simple, professional-looking emails without a steep learning curve. Previously, Counterfire used MailChimp but decided to move away from it in favour of a more integrated solution. Unlike MailChimp, CiviMail keeps all supporter data within CiviCRM, ensuring better data security and compliance. It also eliminates the need for costly third-party services, providing a more seamless and cost-effective solution tailored to Counterfire’s needs.
Lastly, we created a couple of initial reports so the Counterfire team has a clear overview of donations and the mailing list. As we support them to use the new system we can easily iterate on these reports using the flexibility of CiviCRM’s SearchKit.
If you’re working on something similar and want to chat, feel free to get in touch via hello@outlandish.com – we’d be happy to help.
P.S. Counterfire’s newsletter, which goes out to more than 10,000 people, is well worth subscribing to. You can sign up on their website here!
