How to pick the best CRM for membership organisations
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By the time most organisations reach the point of choosing a new membership CRM, they've already done a significant amount of work. The problem has been identified, the pain points are known, and the organisation is now standing at the point where the next step feels both exciting and a little daunting: selecting the system that will enable them to be successful for years to come.
At this stage, it’s common to feel overwhelmed by the number of options available. Many CRMs appear similar on the surface, and demos often highlight the same set of amazing features. Yet beneath that similarity lie differences in reliability, structure, and long-term sustainability.
According to MemberWise Digital Excellence report (2023/24), many UK membership organisations say that choosing the right CRM is one of the most difficult decisions they make in their digital strategy — not because of a lack of options, but because so many systems appear similar on the surface while behaving very differently in practice.
This is why the selection stage requires requires a clear method — one that helps you see past surface similarities and make a choice that matches your organisation’s goals, capacity, and culture.
Start by understanding what matters
One of the most helpful steps at this stage is revisiting you requirements with fresh eyes. Requirements lists often start broad: everything that sounds helpful, everything the team has mentioned, everything the current system fails to do. But once you enter the selection phase, the question shifts from What do we want? to What do we need in order to succeed?
This is where approaches like the MoSCoW (Must-have, Should-have, Could-have, and Won’t-have) method become useful — not as a rigid template, but as a way of thinking. Must-haves should be the capabilities that support your core purpose: renewal journeys, events, finance processes, member engagement, data accuracy. Should-haves are the things that strengthen those outcomes. Could-haves are enhancements that add value without dictating the level of success. Wont-haves are the least-critical or not appropriate at that time features.
When organisations revisit their requirements in this way, things become clearer. What initially felt like 100 needs often becomes 15 genuine priorities. This level of clarity is what allows scoring, weight, and evaluation to become meaningful, rather than a paper exercise. Independent guidance from consultancies such as Equantiis reinforces this approach, highlighting that organisations who prioritise their core needs early — and weight them appropriately — consistently make clearer, more sustainable CRM decisions.
Why weighted scoring gives you the clearest path forward
Weighted scoring is not about giving every requirement a number — it's about acknowledging that some choices have a greater impact on your long-term success. Two CRMs might both offer an "events module," for example, but if events make up half your revenue, the depth, reliability, and reporting of that module matter far more than an isolated feature neither system will really rely on.
A simple scoring model makes these differences visible. You give each requirement a score out of 10 based on:
How well the supplier meets it; and
How important that requirement is to your organisation.
When those numbers start coming together, you begin to see patterns. A system that looks appealing In a demo may not perform well in areas that genuinely drive your organisation's value. Another system that felt understated might score significantly higher across key areas.
The biggest advantage to this method is that it keeps the decision strategic. It protects against being swayed by the "shiniest" demo or feature, and instead continues the level of clarity you've built throughout the project.
Looking beyond the features
Where most CRM projects succeed or fail is not in the feature set — it's in the culture, the level of support offered, and the way the supplier works.
This is often the moment when teams start to pick up on signals: how questions are answered, how challenges are acknowledged, how transparent the supplier is about risk, complexity and time. A CRM is not simply software; it's a relationship, a partnership, a commitment. The wrong cultural fit adds friction into every interaction. The right cultural fit feels like collaboration from the start.
UK CRM buyer insights from Capterra highlight this too: organisations place far greater weight on supplier responsiveness, cultural fit, and long-term support than on isolated features, because these are the factors that ultimately determine whether the partnership will work.
This is why some of the most valuable questions you can ask have nothing to do with features:
"What does support look like when something goes wrong?"
"Who else have you worked with that looks like us?"
"Can we speak to a couple of your existing customers — ideally membership organisations similar to ours?"
"What happens when we need something you don't currently offer?"
A supplier's answers tell you far more about the long-term relationship than any feature list ever could.
Phasing your CRM project
Many organisations assume that selecting a CRM means choosing everything they will ever need, all at once. But, we find, that the most successful projects — and the happiest teams — often take a phased approach.
You focus first on the processes the drive the most value: renewals, payments, communications, member experience. Once those are stable and successful, you layer in additional modules, improvements, and integrations as your organisation grows into them.
This approach avoids what we like to call the "big bang" fatigue that so many projects fall victim to. It reduces risk. It creates early wins. And it allows the CRM to evolve with your organisation, rather than overwhelming it.
The importance of choosing the best CRM for you needs
One of the clearest examples of why supplier selection matters cross from Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI), a global network supporting more than 750 organisational members working to conserve plant species around the world.
Before moving to sheepCRM, BGCI were using a system designed primarily for fundraising rather than membership. On the surface it seemed workable, but in practice it made it difficult to engage members effectively, track value, or build the kind of meaningful digital experience their growing community needed. Much of their work relied on manual processes: spreadsheets, scattered tools, email threads, and platforms that weren't designed to support the complexity of membership at scale.
As their community expanded — and as global conservation work demanded more coordination across teams, regions, and partners — the cracks increased. Renewals lacked the visibility and consistency they needed, member engagement was harder to maintain, and administrative work consumed more time that it should have. What looked manageable at first quickly became resource-heavy and limiting.
This is what misalignment looks like in reality: a system that simply isn't built to accommodate an organisation's structure, ambition, or operating model. BGCI didn't have a "CRM issue" — they had a fit issue. Their tools couldn't solve with the demands of fast-moving, international membership network.
When BGCI selected sheepCRM as their CRM partner, the shift was immediate. They were able to create a digital member space and automate key journeys the that had previously been handled manually. Instead of relying on email chains, they could finally track, monitor, and reach members in a structured, consistent way. It enabled them not only to work more efficiently, but to think differently about how they support their global community.
Stories like BGCI’s highlight why this stage of the process matters. Two CRM systems may appear similar on the surface, but only one will align with the realities of membership — the workflows, the data requirements, and the responsibility of supporting members at scale. Getting this decision right protects your project from the kind of misalignment that can stay hidden until deep into implementation.
A method that gives you confidence — and a clearer next step
By the time you reach supplier selection, you should already have a clear idea around what matters most, what drives value, and what your organisation needs to be successful. Choosing the best membership CRM for your organisaton is not about finding the system with the most features — it’s about finding the partner and the pathway that align with your goals.
If you haven’t yet defined your requirements, our free Membership CRM Project Planner gives you a structured starting point.
For those wanting more immediate guidance and advice, you can always book a discovery call with one of our experts to talk through how this approach works in practice — and how to bring clarity, structure, and confidence to the final stage of your CRM journey.
