Key Nonprofit Highlights
The American Association of Zoo Veterinarians (AAZV) supports a global community of professionals dedicated to advancing animal health, conservation, and welfare. By switching from DonorPerfect to Bloomerang, the AAZV gained the visibility, flexibility, and intuitive tools needed to turn data into meaningful connections with donors. As a result, AAZV achieved a 41% donor retention rate and email open rates as high as 60%, as well as successfully recapturing 120 lapsed donors within the last year, all while empowering staff to spend less time managing systems and more time advancing their mission.
Challenge
Limited donor insight and fundraising performance
The American Association of Zoo Veterinarians’ old CRM made it difficult to understand the organization’s fundraising history and donor engagement. Tasked with guiding strategy and growth, Executive Director Molly Gezella-Baranczyk needed clearer insight into the organization’s data so the team could strengthen relationships with supporters and advance its mission even further. As she explained, “They had not had a leadership change in quite some time, so they’d been sort of doing things the way they were used to doing them. Coming in as a new leader, I needed to have more line of sight on our data history and fundraising initiatives so I could understand what we knew and what we could do better.”
Their previous system, DonorPerfect, simply didn’t provide that visibility. Data was too layered and difficult to interpret, which made it challenging for the team to quickly understand donor behavior, compare results across years, or make informed decisions. “DonorPerfect just didn’t provide the data I needed as a leader to make decisions and support efforts in a meaningful way,” Gezella-Baranczyk recalled. “I couldn’t, as a new person coming in, understand how to use it with intuition.”
For the AAZV, the true cost of a fundraising platform goes beyond the software itself. As Gezella-Baranczyk put it, “People look at cost as the flat rate of the system, but I also look at how much of my staff time do I have to spend utilizing that system. I look at what it’s going to do to either enhance or distract our team because people are our most important asset.” AAZV needed a donor management system that was user-friendly, insightful, and designed for the realities of nonprofit work.
Solution
An intuitive nonprofit CRM that turns donor insights into action
AAZV adopted Bloomerang to gain clearer insights into donor behavior and streamline its fundraising efforts. With Bloomerang’s easy-to-use donor CRM and reporting tools, Gezella-Baranczyk and her team were able to quickly access the data they needed. “I feel like I have a much better understanding of how to quickly go in and get the data I need to get,” Gezella-Baranczyk said, describing how the system immediately improved visibility into the organization’s donor information.
One of the most impactful improvements came through segmentation. By organizing supporters into groups and comprehensive donor profiles, the team could better understand different types of donors. From members of the public who care deeply about wildlife to veterinary professionals who value scientific research, AAZV can now tailor communications accordingly and even experiment with new engagement strategies.
“It’s really helped us understand what’s working. We can look deeper into donor engagement and do a lot more A/B testing with our content,” explained Gezella-Baranczyk. “I don’t want to create content for content’s sake—I want it to be meaningful. So now we can look at our open rates going up and know that means we’re telling a story people want to hear.”
Bloomerang’s dashboards and reporting features further strengthened the organization’s decision-making. Gezella-Baranczyk appreciated being able to quickly view key fundraising metrics in one place, noting, “I like being able to go to the dashboard on the home screen and see right away, here’s our data points. We have goals around not just dollars raised but around retention rate and median and mean donation so that we can know how we are getting better. And if we do an appeal, we can even throw a little campaign tracker on there so we can see how well we did.”
Ultimately, Bloomerang’s intuitive design made it easier for the entire team to understand their data and act on it with confidence.
Results
Stronger donor relationships, improved retention, and smarter fundraising
With Bloomerang, the AAZV strengthened its communication strategy and gained deeper insight into supporter behavior. The organization now maintains a donor retention rate of 41%, which Gezella-Baranczyk attributes to a more thoughtful and consistent donor communication strategy. “We’ve really increased our communication and created a better strategy around communication with donors in a sort of ‘Ask, update, appeal’ cycle,” she explained. “Because we have so much information, it makes our communications with them more meaningful, which deepens the connection.”
AAZV has also seen open rates as high as 60% when using more targeted, segmented email lists. As Development and Communications Manager Alex Reddy shared, “One of the biggest advantages has been how easy it is to filter and refine audiences, especially with the ability to include or exclude specifically tagged donors. That flexibility has really helped improve performance.”
Although their Bloomerang database currently includes many supporters without email addresses, Reddy rightfully sees this as a “meaningful opportunity for growth. We are excited to continue expanding our reach and cultivating new donors, particularly through Journey Automations and other features within Bloomerang that support more personalized engagement.”
Bloomerang also helped the AAZV uncover opportunities within its own supporter base. Using wealth insights to identify high-capacity supporters who had not given recently, the organization successfully re-engaged a number of supporters. “We’ve recaptured 120 lapsed donors within the last year just by working our own CRM,” shared Gezella-Baranczyk. “Bloomerang’s generosity and engagement tools have provided helpful insights into which donors to prioritize and have made it easier for us to be more thoughtful and strategic in our outreach,” added Reddy.
The biggest impact came from how easily the team could navigate the platform and turn insight into action. “The systems are really intuitive to use, which is super helpful for staff feeling comfortable navigating them right away,” Gezella-Baranczyk said. “It’s very straightforward.” With clearer insights and stronger connections to supporters, the AAZV can focus on what matters most: advancing veterinary science, protecting wildlife, and improving animal welfare around the world.
