Revised on April 4, 2025
Data migration is a standard—and critical—step when launching a new membership site or member portal. It can feel overwhelming, but it’s essential to preserve the insights you’ve gained from tracking member engagement, retention, and benefit usage over time.
The good news? With the right tools and a clear strategy, your association can make the process seamless. In this guide, we’ll walk through a step-by-step plan for successful data migration using CiviCRM, one of the most flexible open-source CRM platforms available in 2025.
Why Associations Need to Prioritize Smart Data Migration
In today’s digital landscape, associations rely heavily on data to:
- Evaluate member engagement
- Report on program success
- Automate communications
- Personalize member experiences
- Fulfill their mission more effectively
Whether you’re changing your CMS, AMS, or LMS, preserving and cleaning your data before the move is essential. Below, we’ll cover how to prep your data, what to migrate, how to use CiviCRM for the job, and how to test it—all while keeping your future goals in mind.
Step 1: Define Your Data Migration Goals
Before diving into spreadsheets and systems, align your team on what matters most.
Ask:
- What are our primary goals for the new system?
- What reports do we want to generate?
- What fields do we need to personalize content or automate tasks?
- What data supports our mission and member needs?
Create a list of “must-have” data fields. These will guide what you migrate and help ensure the new system is set up with purpose.
What Data Should Your Association Migrate?
Start with the essentials:
- Contact info (members, staff, donors)
- Membership types and statuses
- Events and participation records
- Activities and communications
- Contributions and donations
- User profiles and relationships
- Partner or sponsor data
Then review what’s outdated, incomplete, or irrelevant. Don’t let legacy data clutter up your new CRM.
Pro Tip: If you’re not sure whether to keep it, ask:
- Does it support our current mission?
- Will we use it in the next 12–18 months?
- Does it have any reporting value?
If the answer is no, let it go—or archive it somewhere safe for historical reference.
Step 2: Clean and Prepare Your Data
Think of this as your digital spring cleaning. Like moving to a new house, you want to bring only what’s useful.
Perform These Tasks:
- Deduplicate: Remove duplicate records.
- Normalize: Standardize naming, formatting, and values.
- Purge: Delete irrelevant or outdated fields and entries.
- Validate: Ensure fields match the expected data types (e.g., date fields, numeric values).
Step 3: Understand and Map Your Data Fields
Now that you’ve identified the content types to migrate, zoom in on the data fields themselves.
Identify Fields to Keep
Review columns like:
- First Name / Last Name
- Email / Phone / Address
- Membership level
- Tags or interest areas
- Donation history
- Event attendance
Skip granular or outdated data like timestamp logs or lunch preferences from a 2018 conference.
Confirm Field Types
Make sure each field is labeled correctly (checkbox, text, numeric, etc.). This helps avoid migration errors.
Step 4: Map Old Data to the New System
Not all platforms handle data the same way. Map each field from the old system to its equivalent in CiviCRM. Some fields may need to be created in your new system, especially if you're customizing.
Example: What was previously stored as an "activity" may now be stored as an "event."
Step 5: Choose Your Migration Method
CiviCRM comes with robust built-in import tools for core content types:
- Contacts
- Memberships
- Contributions
- Activities
- Participation
If you’re using Drupal or WordPress with CiviCRM:
- Drupal: Use Migrate API for batch imports (custom development required).
- WordPress: Use migration plugins or custom scripts if moving from a non-WordPress system.
Step 6: Test the Migration (Yes, the Whole Thing!)
1. Run a Full Test Migration
Don’t rely on a sample—run the full dataset. This identifies:
- Duplicate entries
- Field mismatches
- Missing required fields
- Incorrect data types
2. Troubleshoot Errors
Clean up any issues flagged in the test. Fix field formats, fill gaps, or remove problematic data.
3. Identify Batch Size Limits
CiviCRM, Drupal, and WordPress all have upload limits. Start small (100 rows), then increase to 500, 1000, etc. until you find the sweet spot.
Step 7: Perform the Final Data Migration
Once everything is tested and clean, perform the final migration using the max batch size you identified. With all errors resolved, this process should go smoothly.
Step 8: Perform QA and Spot Checks
Use your saved reports to validate that everything transferred correctly. Pull key reports and compare them to the old system.
Also:
- Spot check a random sample of records
- Confirm data relationships (e.g., parent/child organizations)
- Test automation triggers if using them
Step 9: Train Your Team
Even the cleanest CRM setup is useless without confident users.
Set your team up for success:
- Create short tutorials or walkthroughs
- Host live training sessions
- Set up a resource hub with FAQs
- Use the CiviCRM forums or Drupal/WordPress communities for peer support
Make 2025 the Year You Clean Up and Move Forward
Data migration doesn’t have to be messy or stressful. With a structured approach and tools like CiviCRM, your association can confidently transition to a system that supports your goals, enhances your reporting, and unlocks new member engagement opportunities.
By planning ahead, cleaning your data, testing thoroughly, and training your team—you’ll ensure a smooth and successful migration.
Want more tools, templates, and support for your data migration journey? Visit our website.
Comments
Thanks for this. Data migration is essentially hard, and I think your title is misleading. But sure, it's great to make is as less hard as possible.