The Challenge
Michigan Central, a Ford-backed innovation district operating as both a nonprofit and an LLC, lacked a centralized CRM and shared data framework. Prospect, donor and partner communications were managed through personal inboxes and disconnected spreadsheets, resulting in siloed information, inconsistent tracking and limited leadership visibility.
Departments across the organization each managed engagement, milestones and reporting differently. Without shared governance or standardized processes, forecasting and performance measurement required manual consolidation, limiting transparency and slowing decision-making.
To support continued growth, Michigan Central needed an enterprise-level platform capable of unifying teams, standardizing data practices and creating organization-wide reporting within a single scalable system.
The Solution
Kiwi implemented HubSpot Enterprise as a centralized, multi-team CRM built to support structured governance, automated lifecycle management and cross-department collaboration.
We migrated 50,000 contacts from legacy spreadsheets and departmental systems into a unified portal, applying structured mapping, deduplication and segmentation logic to create a clean, relational database.
To operationalize the platform, we configured structured data models and workflows across seven core business units—including Marketing/Communications, Innovation, Civic Partnerships, Events, Programming, Arts and Membership—ensuring each team had tailored pipelines and reporting while operating within shared governance standards.
A standardized deal and engagement framework introduced required fields, lifecycle automation and automated task triggers to replace manual processes and improve forecasting accuracy. More than 60 team members were onboarded through structured, department-specific training sessions to drive adoption across the organization.
The Outcome
Michigan Central now operates from a centralized source of truth that supports cross-functional collaboration and real-time visibility into engagement and pipeline performance.
Data that once lived in isolated spreadsheets is standardized, accessible and governed within a single system. Leadership no longer relies on manual reconciliation to understand progress, and teams operate with consistent definitions, structured workflows and shared reporting views.
Following launch, we continue to support the organization through weekly office hours, providing ongoing training, ad hoc administrative guidance and continuous optimization as new initiatives and teams come online.
With enterprise governance, multi-team adoption and sustained support in place, Michigan Central now has a scalable CRM foundation built to support long-term growth and organizational alignment.
Hear from our happy client…
I wanted to reach out and extend my thanks for the incredible job you have done. You are awesome at what you do, and I am blessed to have the opportunity to work alongside you. I am excited about what we are doing with HubSpot—this will be a game changer for our organization.
Paul, IT Infrastructure and Application Portfolio Manager
Michigan Central