Select & Implement a CRM to Strengthen Donor, Program, and Operations Management

My goal for this Taproot Project is to create a right-sized CRM and operational system that helps YWLS strengthen donor stewardship, streamline communications, track key relationships, and automate organizational workflows as we grow.

YWLS is a small but growing nonprofit preparing young women—particularly Black and Latinx girls—for pathways in leadership, STEM, entrepreneurship, and college/career success. As our organization expands, we want to ensure that our internal systems grow alongside us so that no donor relationship, volunteer opportunity, partnership, or critical task falls through the cracks.

We are seeking a skilled volunteer to help us assess our organizational needs, identify and recommend an appropriate CRM platform, and support foundational implementation. We are looking for guidance on systems that can help us:

-Track donors, sponsors, volunteers, partners, and supporters in one centralized place
-Manage communications and email outreach, including stewardship and follow-up workflows
-Improve visibility into fundraising, partnerships, and organizational priorities
-Track timelines, key deliverables, and project milestones for initiatives and events
-Identify opportunities for automation that reduce manual administrative work and improve consistency

Given our size, we are looking for practical, sustainable solutions that a lean nonprofit team can realistically maintain over time. Ideally, this project would result in a recommended platform, foundational setup, workflow recommendations, and a clear plan for implementation and ongoing use.

This project will help YWLS build the operational backbone needed to sustainably grow our impact.

YWLS exists to equip young women—especially Black and Latinx girls—with leadership skills, confidence, exposure, mentorship, and pathways into STEM, entrepreneurship, and college and career success. To deliver on that mission, we must also build strong systems behind the scenes.

A stronger CRM and workflow system will allow us to deepen donor and partner relationships, improve follow-through, better steward supporters, strengthen fundraising efforts, and reduce time spent on manual administrative tasks. That means more organizational capacity to focus on what matters most: serving young women.

For a small organization, operational efficiency is mission critical. Every hour saved through stronger systems becomes time reinvested into programming, mentorship, partnerships, scholarships, and student opportunities.

Volunteers who support this work will play a meaningful role in helping YWLS build the infrastructure necessary to grow responsibly, strengthen sustainability, and increase the number of young women we can ultimately reach and support.

My team and I have prepared for this project by identifying this work as a key organizational priority and aligning internal leadership around the need for stronger systems and infrastructure.

As a growing nonprofit, we have reached an important stage where spreadsheets, disconnected tools, and manual tracking are no longer sustainable for the level of growth and engagement we are managing. We have begun documenting our needs and use cases—including donor stewardship, sponsorship tracking, volunteer engagement, communications, event planning, and internal project management—to help ensure clarity and focus for this engagement.

We are prepared to dedicate time each week to partner closely with a volunteer, provide organizational context, gather materials, answer questions, and make timely decisions. We also understand that implementation success depends on internal adoption, and we are committed to integrating recommendations into our day-to-day operations.

Importantly, we are seeking systems that fit the realities of a small nonprofit team: manageable, scalable, and sustainable. We view this project as foundational infrastructure that will support YWLS over the long term and are committed to implementing what is built.