As nonprofit organizations, it's our job to provide the best constituent experiences, especially when it comes to grassroots organizing. One of the best ways to provide stellar constituent experiences is to understand their interests. For example, what action alerts or donation appeals do they respond to? Do they prefer Direct Mail or email communications? Any decent CRM system will help you get a good snapshot of your constituents interests and history of actions with your organization. But if you don't analyze the data, then you are missing out on getting to know and engage with your constituents on their terms.
Check out this great chart that Ben Murane of judaismwithoutborders.org created to help his colleagues understand the trajectory of an online acquisition into a constituent relationship management system. If you find yourself struggling to explain this to a newbie organizer or even the president of your organization this chart will come in handy.