A donor database migration where you are the hero
Fondation AraliaInvented name
A foundation had to decide the future of its donor database, with no digital department and teams that doubted their own data. We wrote a gamebook for it in which it was the hero. Everyone read their own path, then the group faced the cost of doing nothing.
- Sector
- Environmental foundation
- Size
- A team of a few dozen people
- Format
- One day
- In the room
- Fewer than ten people: fundraising, donor data, digital, finance, programmes and the executive director. A data expert from a software company co-facilitated the day.
Context
- The donor management tool is seen as working but limited. The teams do not trust their data.
- Three options are on the table: keep what exists, move to a modern CRM, or aim for a data and AI platform.
- The foundation has no digital department and little in-house capacity.
- Other charities have been through migrations like this until their teams burned out.
The challenge
Help a small team choose between three technical futures it barely knows, without drowning it in jargon or pushing it towards one answer.
The design
Key ideas
A gamebook written for the occasion
A story in which the foundation’s own team is the hero, on that very day. About thirty steps and three paths: keep what exists, move to a modern CRM, aim for a data and AI platform. At each step, a choice: which consultant, which tender, which sponsor. Everyone reads alone and traces their path on a map.
The decision tree as a poster
Every path through the gamebook is drawn on a large poster. The group can see where each person went, and why.
Obstacles before solutions
After the expert’s view, a “why not go for it?” session brings out what is holding the foundation back. Obstacles are grouped before anyone sketches a solution.
The cost of doing nothing
Our reversed SWOT: strengths that wear away, weaknesses that grow, missed opportunities and threats, if the foundation changes nothing. Doing nothing becomes an option like the others, with its price.
How the time was used
- Open
- Explore
- Decide
- Celebrate
9amOpen
Round the table
Six questions: my role, how I use the database, what holds me back, what I expect, how confident I am about the migration.
Explore
The migration where you are the hero
Reading the gamebook alone, tracing your path on a map.
Explore
Crossing paths
Questions and answers, in front of the decision tree poster.
NoonExplore
Lunch and production
Over lunch, the facilitation team turns the morning into material.
Explore
The expert’s view
What comparable organisations do.
Decide
Why not go for it?
Obstacles, grouped, then a first sketch of a solution.
Decide
The cost of doing nothing
The reversed SWOT, filled in together.
4pmDecide
Alignment
Obstacles, opportunities and first steps.
The seminar in miniature
Round the table
About ten people around the table: fundraising, donor data, digital, finance, programmes, senior management. Each answers the same questions: their role, how they use the database, their obstacles, their expectations, their confidence in the migration. Everyone speaks before the technology gets a word in.
The migration where you are the hero
A gamebook written for the occasion, with the team as its hero: about thirty steps and three paths. At each step, a choice: which consultant, which tender, which donor. Each person reads alone and traces their route on a map. The technical choice becomes a story you live through.
Crossed paths
Every path through the gamebook is drawn on a large poster. The group gathers around it, standing: who went where, why, and where each person ended up. Everyone has lived all three futures before debating them, and the questions come thick and fast.
Lunch and production
While the group has lunch in the foyer, the facilitation team shapes the morning’s work: the words from the round table, the paths taken, the questions raised. The afternoon builds on this material.
The expert’s view
A data expert from a software vendor, co-facilitating the day, describes what comparable organisations do. Without pushing a solution: other charities have been through this kind of migration, sometimes to the point of exhausting their teams.
Why not go for it?
Before any solution, the group brings out what is holding the foundation back, a team with no digital department and few internal resources. Obstacles are written down, put up, then grouped into families across three walls, before a first sketch of a solution.
The cost of doing nothing
Our reversed SWOT, filled in together on four boards: what happens if the foundation changes nothing. Doing nothing becomes an option like the others, with its price tag, and stops being the default choice.
Alignment
Back around the table to connect obstacles and opportunities, then decide the first steps together: set a quantified summit to aim for, a tender focused on needs, visits to comparable organisations, splitting the project into phases.
The materials, redrawn
The gamebook’s decision tree
One reader’s path
The reversed SWOT
-
Strengths that erode
What works today and will not last
-
Weaknesses that worsen
What is stuck and will cost more tomorrow
-
Missed opportunities
What others will seize instead of us
-
Threats getting closer
What will end up catching us
What if we did nothing?
A Flow Design tool, Creative Commons licence
Deliverables and follow-up
- A full report, with each participant’s own account: their hopes, their stakes, their words.
- The three scenarios compared, with their strengths and limits, and the organisational questions: in-house or outsourced, dependence on suppliers, sizing.
- Seven workstreams, the completed reversed SWOT, and a plan: set a measurable summit, a needs-led tender, a visit to comparable organisations, a phased roll-out, financial and social indicators.
AI and digital tools
The gamebook’s decision tree was modelled so it could be printed as a poster. The discussions were recorded to feed the report.
What we take away
- A technical choice becomes accessible once it is told as a story. Everyone lived the three futures before debating them.
- Putting a price on the status quo changes the conversation: doing nothing is no longer the default.
Working on something similar?
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