USS Midway Museum
Mission: The USS Midway is America’s living symbol of freedom. The mission of the USS Midway Museum is to preserve the historic USS Midway aircraft carrier and the legacy of those who serve, inspire and educate future generations, and entertain museum guests. In addition, the USS Midway Foundation exists to help fund education programs, organizations, and initiatives that support America’s core values of service and sacrifice in the name of freedom.
Organization size: An aircraft-carrier with a small but mighty team + volunteers
Fundraising goal: $30M+
Number of MISSION CRM users & Docents/Volunteers: 925~
Evolved from: Raiser’s Edge 7 + legacy volunteer application
Executive Summary
The USS Midway was the longest-serving aircraft carrier in the 20th century. Named after the climactic Battle of Midway of June 1942, it missed World War II by one week when commissioned on September 10, 1945. On April 11, 1992, the Midway was decommissioned in San Diego and remained in Bremerton, Washington, until 2003 when it was donated to the 501(c)3 nonprofit San Diego Aircraft Carrier Museum organization. It opened as the USS Midway Museum in June 2004.
Since the opening of the USS Midway Museum in 2004, the museum has had more than 19 million visitors – making it one of the most-visited historic naval ship museums in the world, and of the top five museums in the United States.
The Midway’s technology environment included multiple systems maintained by different departments and most ‘integrations’ between systems involved manual imports and exports or validation of data and data re-entry.
The Midway’s constituents are diverse and can have multiple touchpoints with the organization, spanning guests, members (13,000), volunteers, former crew members and event participants.
Watch the video to see the Midway’s transformation!
Business Challenges
In order to propel the organization forward, the Midway needed a solution to address several key and interconnected challenges they faced on the ship:
- Two separate IT systems and processes: one for managing volunteers and another for managing monetary donors. “A patron would give us a cash gift and I would pull up a record and have no idea the relationship they had with our organization. Yes, maybe they gave a $5,000 cash donation, but they’ve also been volunteering every Saturday for the last 18 years. It was just impossible to know,” said Laura White, President, USS Midway Foundation. Having their siloed data meant the Midway was unable to truly understand how each individual is involved in the organization. And without a 360-degree view of constituents they were hampered in achieving their fundraising and relationship management goals.
- The Midway’s volunteer management system would soon no longer be supported
- The Midway’s current technology environment included multiple point solutions maintained by different departments
- Most ‘integrations’ between systems were manual imports and exports or validation of data and data re-entry
- Lack of automations to streamline process and information sharing cross-department
The Sylogist MISSION CRM Solution
Sylogist MISSION CRM stepped up to the challenge by implementing its donor management and fundraising product, MISSION CRM, alongside the implementation and customization of Microsoft’s Volunteer Management & Engagement solution – so the Midway can connect the dots and see the full picture of a constituent a donor, member, volunteer, their military service etc. all in one place, on one platform.
With MISSION CRM and Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit, the Midway realized it vision with:
MISSION CRM system provides a 360-degree view of constituents’ engagement with The Midway in multiple capacities. The data is easily accessible and shows the full story of each constituent, who could be a visitor, donor, member, former crew member, volunteer, student, or event participant.
Integration with Galaxy Ticketing & Online Giving Pages to bring membership-related data and donations right into MISSION CRM – no imports required!
Implementation and customization of Microsoft’s Volunteer Management & Engagement solution to schedule 900~ docents and volunteers across the ship 363 days of the year!
Benefits & Results
“It’s kind of a dream for fundraisers and for those of us that are building different relationships throughout the ship to be able to know that a person is a member, a donor, a prospect for a campaign, a volunteer and an original board member. All of a sudden, these dots are all coming together!” said White.
With Sylogist MISSION CRM + Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit, the Midway have achieved their strategic goals and laid a solid foundation upon which to grow as they continue their capital campaign in support of Freedom Park and ongoing outreach and engagement with their stakeholders. “We’re looking forward to the next 20 years building a park, bringing on new exhibit, seeing more guests from around the world. This system is going to allow us to maintain that and grow, and we’re thrilled,” said White.
Future Prospects
As the Implementation Partner for the USS Midway Museum, MISSION CRM couldn’t be prouder to play a role in supporting the Midway team to realize its vision and the day-to-day lives of this passionate team.