Contact management, newsletters and events – all in one place with CiviCRM: Case Study of Reti Semi Rurali
Only greater diversification will enable us to have healthy and sustainable agricultural and food systems in the near future. This is the primary goal of Rete Semi Rurali, a CiviCRM user. Letās begin reading their case study:
Challenge
Rete Semi Rurali is an association that groups 40 organisations and promotes the dynamic and collective management of agricultural diversity. The objective is that of an agro-ecological transition in agriculture, while respecting the strategic and organised collective management of agro-biodiversity.
To be able to manage member and partner relationships as well as the organisation of events dedicated to biodiversity, the association recognised the need to streamlining processes and to initiate targeted and diversified communication for each stakeholder. Since 2024, they have chosen to use CiviCRM as their sole tool for managing events, newsletters, and other communications.
Interview
We asked Manuele Bartolini, head of communications and events at Rete Semi Rurali to share their experience with CiviCRM.
Q: Manuele, what was the situation at the association before you decided to introduce a tool such as a CRM inside the network?
A: At the beginning the contacts were scattered across different locations,a typical situation in an organisation with many collaborators. Moreover, in the case of the Network, the situation was even more complex, as it is a second-level association that encompasses 40 other organizations. The database was divided into various Excel files; the newsletter was managed through a form integrated into our WordPress site; while the events were managed exclusively through Google forms or email subscriptions.
Q: Taking contact management as a start point, how does your business now work using CiviCRM?
A: First, we created comprehensive and easily accessible contact profiles; furthermore, each contact was “categorized” according to a system of Tags, Groups, and Smart Groups that works for us. This allows us to filter contacts by category and send them targeted communications.
Q: How was your experience using Mosaico for the newsletter?
A: The Network sends out one or two newsletters a month. The first is of a general nature and covers everything from research projects to our and our members’ events, including a section dedicated to publications. The second, titled SemiLegali, focuses exclusively on seed legislation updates, so as to best meet the needs of different target audiences. The tool is intuitive and offers all the necessary features: template creation, group-based sending, and initial reports.
Q: What are the advantages and disadvantages of CiviEvent when it comes to event management?
A: Thanks to CiviEvent, we can centralize bookings in a single tool which significantly simplifies our work. Being able to manage contacts, create events, and coordinate various communicationsāfrom the aforementioned newsletters to press releasesāusing a single platform makes the entire process much more efficient.
Q: What else would you like to do to further improve your contact management or contact collection workflow?
A: One thing that we would like to introduce in the near future is the insertion of a QR code on our business cards, in a manner in which, once scanned, recipients can register directly in the CRM. This would further help automate the data collection process.
Additionally, we would like to improve the categorisation of contacts both based on their areas of interest and the context/event in which we met them.
Solution
The main advantage is having a single point to collect data, through a simple and intuitive interface. It may seem like a trivial answer, but for the life of an association, this aspect really makes a difference.
