Our Implementation Approach: Moving Your Data Without Moving to Tears
Let’s be honest—migrating your museum’s members and donors to a new system feels about as exciting as a physical move, packing up a thousand fragile objects and hauling them somewhere else. But here’s the thing: it doesn’t have to be a total nightmare. With the right approach, you can transition your membership, donors, and patron data without endless headaches, heartaches, or the fear that someone’s grandma who has donated thousands of dollars to your organization has suddenly disappeared.
So, buckle up and let us walk you through how migrating your member and donor database can be, if not fun, at least not a descent into chaos. Spoiler: We handle the heavy lifting.
Why Bother? Let’s Talk Benefits (A Little Motivation Never Hurt)
Why would you even think about migrating from your old system? Sure, it’s ancient, clunky, and somehow crashes the moment you need to pull a major donation report. But still, it’s familiar, right? Why mess with what sort of works?
Here’s why: A modern museum management platform makes your life AND your team's lives easier. Imagine:
Instant access to updated member records with all their information
Donor history at your fingertips, no longer buried in some confusing folder structure that only one staff member knows how to navigate.
Targeted communication that doesn’t feel like a shot in the dark. Want to segment your donors by interest in medieval art vs. dinosaur bones? Easy!
Better and Simplified reporting for the board or development team. No more five-hour adventures in Excel, praying the formatting holds.
New features that let you do things you couldn’t before. Imagine automatic reminders for membership renewals, or easily generating tailored donor appeals based on giving history and interests.
Improved user experience for you and your team. Your staff will finally enjoy using the system instead of dreading it, thanks to intuitive design and easier navigation. It’ll be like switching from an old typewriter to a sleek laptop—much faster, much smoother.
Integrated ticketing, shop, and group rentals data all in one place. No more hunting for information across systems! With everything centralized, you’ll have full visibility into your ticket sales, retail activity, and group or rental bookings—allowing for better decision-making, smoother operations, and more efficient reporting.
Trust us, your future self will thank you for this.
How long will it take?
This is where a Sales person will tell you anything. The truth is that the length of the project depends on your current situation. If you are a brand new museum, you can be up and running in two weeks. But if you are using Altru, DonorPerfect, or Tessitura, you are looking at good 3 to 4 months of effort, depending on the amount of data being migrated. We know you want to go fast, but give yourself enough time to digest change. If you want to migrate from any of these platforms in less time, you’ll put your team under a significant amount of stress, and it may backfire.
Kick-Off, Project Management & Governance
Once the agreement is signed, a Kick-Off meeting is held to go over process and the different aspects of the implementation. A 20 minutes weekly cadence is set so everyone is fully informed on where we are in the process.
Veevart will provide all team members with access to Basecamp, so everyone can share information, ask questions and get transparency on where we are in the process.
System Migration Effort is mostly Data Migration Effort
Here’s the truth: not every organization’s data is perfectly organized and clean—and that’s okay. The key is to be realistic about the current state of your member and donor data, and understand what will be needed to get it ready for migration.
Do you have duplicates?
Are some fields missing?
Has anyone updated donor information in the last few years?
We know your team may not have advanced Excel skills or the time to manually clean up every detail, but that’s where we come in. We’ll support you through this process by providing guidance on what needs fixing and giving you the tools you need. While you work on the data, we’ll be there to help.
A couple of things to take into consideration:
Backing up your data is also a smart first step. Having a backup ensures that even if there’s a hiccup along the way, you won’t lose anything important. Sometimes these backups can be useless - some systems will give you literally 1000 excel sheets. But it is better than having none
Granting us access to your system allows us to do quality checks during the migration. We’ll make sure everything is aligned and accurate before you go live in the new system.
A Two Go-Lives Approach for a Smooth Transition
Migrating everything at once can feel overwhelming—like trying to drink from a firehose. That’s why we break the migration process into two go-lives, to help you transition smoothly and start reaping the benefits sooner without overloading your team. Here’s how it works:
Go-Live #1: Getting You Up and Running Quickly
The first go-live focuses on migrating the most critical data so you can start using your new system and seeing the benefits as soon as possible. During this phase, we migrate:
Contacts
Households
Organizations
Donations
Memberships
Other fundraising activities
Future Tickets
We also provide a quick training session for your team on how to navigate the basics of the new system and access the features you’ll need most immediately. We make sure they are ready and know how to do their job. This Go Live allows you to begin leveraging the platform quickly, without having to wait for everything to be done.
Go-Live #2: Completing the Transition
Once you’re comfortable with the core functionalities and your team has adjusted to the new system, we proceed with the second go-live. This phase includes:
Migration of the Shop
Migration of Groups & Rentals
Advanced training to dive deeper into the system’s more complex features.
Deep Dive Reporting
The migration of any remaining data and features, such as reporting tools, event management, or integration with other platforms.
By pacing the change across two phases, we help your team ease into the transition without being overwhelmed. You get the benefits of your new system early on, while we manage the remaining migration and training in a structured, manageable way.
Staff Training
Training your team on a new system sounds daunting. We know. But trust us, it’s not three hours of dry lectures and awkward pauses. Our training is practical, hands-on, and designed to actually help your staff—not confuse them into oblivion.
Our training is designed to be delivered into phases:
Phase 1: What you need to do your job
Phase 2: Basic Settings, Data Understanding, Basic Reporting
Phase 3: Advanced Settings and Advanced Reporting and Dashboards
We deliver knowledge through:
Interactive sessions where team members can dive into the system and actually use it while learning.
Tailored lessons based on your museum’s unique needs (we know fundraising staff have different priorities than your membership team).
Documentation - because let’s face it, no one remembers everything after one session. We’re here when those inevitable “wait, how do I…?” moments happen.
Going Live Communication (No, We Don’t Leave You Hanging)
The key to a smooth migration is communication. Don’t worry—we won’t just flip a switch, mumble “good luck,” and run for the hills. We’ll keep you in the loop throughout the entire process.
Pre-migration meetings: Also known as Test Week. So you know you are ready. During this week we do 10 minutes daily checkups to go over experiences and questions
Post-migration support: After we wrap up, we’ll stick around to answer questions and provide ongoing help. Because we know, deep down, the real learning happens once you start using the system daily. Here is where you are Customer Success Manager will come in, and take you through the next two stages of training.
Post-Migration: A New World of Possibilities
Once your migration is complete, you’ll start to see the benefits almost immediately. Managing donor relationships, tracking memberships, pulling reports—all will be streamlined and intuitive. Plus, you’ll have the ability to:
Easily segment your donor lists for targeted campaigns (raise your hand if you love sending mass emails that actually make sense).
Track giving trends over time, helping you tailor your future fundraising efforts.
Manage memberships with automated renewals, reminders, and more.
Impress your visitors with Digital Membership Cards
User our powerful ticketing platform to manage your exhibitions and events and provide your members with the discounts and service they deserve
Use our POS to provide next-level service
Leverage new features that open up possibilities you didn’t have before. Automated workflows, smarter reporting, and better integration with other tools mean less manual work for your team.
Have ticketing, shop sales, and group rentals data all in one place. Your team will no longer need to chase down information across multiple systems. From ticket sales to merchandise purchases and event rentals, you’ll be able to track it all, making operations smoother and reporting more efficient.
Boost staff efficiency with an improved user interface. Everything will be easier to find, easier to use, and you might even hear fewer groans when people log in.
