Habitat for Humanity International, a global nonprofit dedicated to building homes and hope in communities worldwide, faced critical infrastructure challenges that threatened their ability to scale their collaborative fundraising model. By partnering with Concourse for managed cloud hosting of their CRM system, they transformed from fragmented operations to a unified, efficient fundraising powerhouse that now serves over 40 affiliate organizations with seamless data integration and collaborative marketing campaigns.
Habitat for Humanity International operates with a clear mission: helping families build and improve places to call home, believing that housing plays a critical role in strong and stable communities. Headquartered in Americus, Georgia, the organization operates in more than 70 countries with funding from individual donations, philanthropic foundations, corporations, civic groups, and local ReStores.
At the heart of their operations is Jay Merchant, Associate Director of Digital Fundraising Platforms, who oversees the organization’s CRMs.
Habitat's ambitious goal was to revolutionize how they approach fundraising by bringing affiliate data into one centralized system, enabling unified marketing campaigns across multiple markets. Rather than having duplicate marketing efforts where donors receive separate communications from both local affiliates and Habitat International, they envisioned a collaborative model.
"One of the reasons for bringing the affiliate data in is so that we can market to them as one big company... versus the local markets marketing to their people and then us marketing to those same people," Merchant describes.
Technical Challenges
Before partnering with Concourse, Habitat faced several critical infrastructure problems:
Business Impact
These technical limitations created significant business challenges:
These issues resulted in an inability to fully execute their collaborative fundraising vision.
Why Concourse Was Chosen
Habitat conducted a formal RFP process, evaluating multiple providers. Concourse stood out for several key reasons:
Partnership Philosophy
What distinguishes this relationship is Concourse's approach as a true partner rather than a vendor. "For us you are a trusted partner, not just a vendor. We couldn't do it without you hand in hand," emphasizes Merchant.
Phase 1: Infrastructure Migration
The migration process, while challenging, was handled with dedicated support from Concourse's team.
Phase 2: Database Optimization and Control Implementation
Concourse implemented proper database management controls while maintaining necessary access for Habitat's sophisticated team:
Phase 3: Scalability Preparation
With affiliate data integration planned, Concourse proactively managed database sizing and performance optimization to handle significant data volume increases.
Operational Excellence
Minimal Downtime: "The amount of downtime we've had with you all has been absolutely minimal... we've had very, very little down time. It's amazing and it's been so important."
Rapid Issue Resolution: Merchant noted that when problems do arise, resolution is swift.
Strategic Focus Shift
"Now we can actually concentrate on the real work."
Moving to Concourse’s managed private cloud hosting freed up Habitat’s resources from having to worry about constant database management to being able to concentrate on development, and do higher value work, such as affiliate data integration and management, advanced segmentation and tagging systems, and relationship mapping for complex donor hierarchies.
Pilot Program Results
Technical Excellence
Had Habitat attempted to manage this infrastructure internally, the costs would have been prohibitive:
"We'd have to have an expert... we'd have to have the environment- all the servers involved and technical knowledge to manage those servers... we'd have to have a DBA or two DBAs... I don't think we could afford that internally and maintain it internally."
The risks of the status quo included continued resource drain on strategic initiatives, higher long-term costs of internal infrastructure management, potential system failures during critical periods, and ultimately an inability to execute on the collaborative fundraising vision.
Collaborative Approach Based on Mutual Respect and Understanding
The partnership is built on mutual respect for expertise and shared commitment to Habitat's mission. Team members from both organizations have even participated in Habitat builds, creating deeper understanding of the mission.
Proactive Support
Rather than reactive problem-solving, Concourse provides proactive monitoring, optimization suggestions, and strategic planning for growth.
Habitat for Humanity's success demonstrates how the right technology partnership can transform organizational capabilities. If your nonprofit or organization faces similar challenges with:
Consider how a strategic partnership with Concourse and its proven CRM hosting expertise could accelerate your organization's impact.
With their infrastructure foundation solidly established, Habitat continues to expand their collaborative fundraising model. Each successful integration proves the value of their unified approach, attracting more affiliates and demonstrating measurable improvements in fundraising effectiveness.
"Every year the plan is to expand the collaborative fundraising model... we're adding more and more affiliates," Merchant explains. This growth is sustainable because they have the right infrastructure partner supporting their vision.
The partnership between Habitat for Humanity and Concourse exemplifies how strategic technology partnerships can enable mission-driven organizations to focus on what they do best: changing lives and building communities.
For organizations considering similar transformations, the lesson is clear: the right partnership doesn't just solve technical problems—it unlocks strategic capabilities that drive mission success.