Who are The Photographer’s Gallery?

The Photographers' Gallery, an internationally renowned London Gallery dedicated to Photography, were seeking to replace their disparate collection of systems with a unified single Website, CRM and Finance platform to better understand and engage with their audience.

With footfall of almost 350,000 people per year, The Photographers’ Gallery comprises of 3 public galleries, a commercial Print Sales department that sells work from £250 - £10,000, a Bookshop, Café, Talks & Events department, Development team (fundraising) and front of house/concierge team including event space booking.

The challenge

Before working with Compuco the Photographers’ Gallery were using multiple different systems including an extremely limited legacy database to manage their memberships. This provided them with no single membership view, minimal data capture and was making it harder to further grow their membership. This left the Gallery feeling dissatisfied and eager to address these problems with a significant upgrade to their digital infrastructure.

A bold digital transformation project was planned, with Compuco’s years of experience delivering in all areas proving a fantastic match to handle all of the organisation’s ambitions as one project.

The scope

Compuco wanted to design a fully holistic solution for the Gallery, meaning nothing less than integrating data from all departments successfully into a single CRM to give a unified 360 view of audience interaction with the gallery, including transactional and gallery attendance information. 

This would be launched alongside a new integrated and thoughtfully designed Drupal website that would be able to better collect information, highlight the gallery’s work and provide a seamless user experience.

Another crucial feature required by the Gallery was that the CRM would be able to  manage all talk and event ticket sales and bookings. This would include both online and offline ticket purchases for standard events and also specialised ticket pricing and availability for VIP or “Patron” events. Other critical functionality Compuco would deliver, included managing the gallery membership, tracking and reporting on fundraising, communications and finance.

An integrated solution

The new CRM was built to replace the Gallery's existing Raiser's Edge platform to manage both volume membership and the gallery's Patron programme for high net worth individuals. The platform elevated the Gallery’s memberships offering, by providing ways for new members to signup online and existing members to self-serve their renewal, additionally offering gift membership options. The members portal also provided a secure location where members can log in and see their transaction history and details, saving valuable time fielding basic payment enquiries for the Gallery’s team.

The system serves as the primary tool for data mining and marketing, with the development team making use of the CRM for managing fundraising targets, interpersonal communications and donation history. This is made easier by the CRM being integrated with the Gallery's email server for automated email filing.

Finally, the Gallery website was replaced by a new integrated Drupal website with an ecommerce platform, with data unified to the CRM. The days of a limited database with multiple supplementary solutions were over. CiviCRM was put at the centre of the Gallery’s operations, providing a complete 360 degree overview of their members and operations in a single location.

The results

The Photographers’ Gallery launched their new CRM and website, resulting in a huge increase in data capture, providing invaluable insights that the gallery could make smart, strategic decisions with going forward. 

Another significant impact of the project was that the Gallery could now process event tickets online. This saved considerable resources, freeing up team members from manual tasks and minimised any errors or bookings being overlooked,  and instead let them dedicate even more time to ensuring unforgettable experiences for their attendees. 

The overall impact of the transformation project on the organisation cannot be overstated. With strong digital resources supporting the backbone of their operations, the Photographers’ Gallery could now focus on building out their fundraising and membership operations to further support their mission of showcasing a diverse range of photography in all its many forms.

‍