All sorts of nonprofit organizations rely on the world’s most popular constituent relationship management platform, Salesforce, for their data and donor management needs. If your organization is already on Salesforce, you have to make sure you’re taking full advantage of this powerful CRM platform.
Plenty of nonprofits recognize the benefits of using a CRM to record, manage, and analyze their data in smarter ways, but fewer realize that using donation apps that integrate with Salesforce can help this flexible platform have an even greater impact on your fundraising and stewardship efforts.
If your organization is in the market for new online donation software, it can be tricky choosing between a Salesforce-integrated donation app and other tools that don’t integrate with Salesforce. There are benefits to each, but donation apps that integrate with Salesforce tend to win out for a few reasons. Let's walk through why, starting with the basics:
- Making the Most of Salesforce
- Benefits of Salesforce Donation Apps
- Features to Look for When Choosing an App
- Salesforce Donation Apps in Action
Salesforce is an excellent partner for nonprofits, but for those without a ton of tech experience, customizing the platform to perfectly suit their needs is the main challenge. Finding integrated donation apps and other tools designed just for nonprofits is the solution. By understanding where to start and what to look for, you’ll be improving your organization’s Salesforce platform in no time.
1. Making the Most of Salesforce
With cloud-based, scalable solutions for practically every sector, it’s no wonder Salesforce has established itself as the world’s leading CRM platform. It's a great choice for businesses, nonprofit organizations, and associations of all sizes.
For nonprofits using the platform, the Salesforce.org Nonprofit Cloud is typically where you’ll start. This foundation of essential CRM functions provides the core structure on which you’ll build out your fundraising, marketing, and engagement toolkits.
Most nonprofits using Salesforce opt to addthe first layer of functionality to their CRM by installing the Nonprofit Success Pack, or NPSP. If your organization is on Salesforce, you’re most likely using the NPSP already.
This starter pack of core functions can support your nonprofit as it adapts to the platform. The most important features of the NPSP include:
Constituent Management
Recording and cleanly organizing all your data is the most essential function of any CRM, but Salesforce takes it a step further by providing nonprofit-specific data management options. Automatically create new donor, volunteer, or other constituent profiles. Customizable fields and relationships allow you to track the most important metrics for your mission.
Basic Campaign Management
Create, track, and manage your fundraising campaigns through the Salesforce platform. With individual donor profiles and 360-degree campaign views, it's easier to analyze your successes, fine-tune your strategies, and identify new stewardship opportunities.
Reports and Dashboards
Reporting and dashboard features are a must for any CRM system, and it's an area where Salesforce really excels. Use pre-set reporting configurations or create customized reports that generate automatically. Easy-to-use, mobile-responsive dashboards help ensure that your entire team stays on the same page, too.
Limitations of the Nonprofit Success Pack
While the NPSP is extremely useful for nonprofit organizations getting set up with Salesforce for the first time, its main purpose is to lay the groundwork for your platform.
That means it provides you with essential data management and tracking capabilities but not extra features that most nonprofits need to actually engage with their supporters online and on the ground. You still need to build out and customize your Salesforce toolkit on top of the NPSP.
While Salesforce offers extremely effective internal tools and several add-ons, you need integrated apps to connect your external, donor-facing digital tools to the central database and its data management features.
Chief among these donor-facing tools are online donation processing capabilities, essential for any organization today. This is often the first major challenge encountered by nonprofits getting adjusted to the Salesforce platform.
2. Benefits of Using Salesforce Donation Apps
As mentioned in the previous section, the Nonprofit Success Pack does not include many additional capabilities that nonprofits might need right out of the box.
In order to collect and process donations online (and save all that valuable data in your database), you’ll have to research and choose the solution that best suits your organization’s needs.
That’s where Salesforce donation apps come in. Using solutions specifically designed to integrate with Salesforce is the most effective way to ensure your organization gets the functionality it needs while making the most of the platform as a whole. Consider these primary benefits of using donation apps that integrate with the platform:
- Integrations eliminate the need for redundant data management practices. Donor data cleanly moves from your app to your CRM. Unlike donation tools that can’t integrate with the platform, Salesforce donation apps increase functionality without complicating your processes.
- Integrated Salesforce donation apps keep your data tidy. Donation apps that offer flexible options make it easy to associate particular transactions with specific campaigns and automatically match donations with existing donors in your database.
- Tidy data leads to smarter strategy. With organized donation data cleanly flowing from your integrated Salesforce donation app to the central CRM, it’s easier than ever to identify trends and opportunities for improvement in your fundraising strategy. This is an area where intuitive reporting features really come in handy.
While some donation solutions or online payment processing services can be useful, they’ll do nothing to boost the value of your most important investment, Salesforce, if they don’t speak the same language.
Tools that don’t integrate with your underlying CRM system can even create the risk of overwhelming your team with logistical and data management challenges down the line as your campaigns grow.
Integrated Salesforce Donation App Ecosystems
Another major benefit of using nonprofit-specific apps that integrate with Salesforce is that it’s possible to build out a comprehensive toolkit that maximizes the value of your platform as a whole.
Donation apps that integrate with Salesforce and are parts of broader suites of tools are particularly useful. The Soapbox Engage suite of apps is a great example of the diverse range of functionality to look for:
Salesforce-integrated suites of nonprofit tools can help you build out a fully customized toolkit that addresses all of your donor engagement needs while boosting the value of your CRM. If each online engagement channel that your donors use (like donation pages and event registrations) is integrated with Salesforce, you’re adding to the 360-degree view of your relationship with them every time they use your online tools.
Salesforce is incredibly effective for compiling and focusing your data to reveal new insights; you just have to find the right set of integrated tools that speak the same language.
3. Features to Look for When Choosing an Integrated Salesforce Donation App
You already know that an organization's online donation tools are some of the most important parts of how it conducts campaigns and engages donors online.
Choosing the perfect software partner for online fundraising requires careful thought, but your decision is made a little easier if you're already using Salesforce. Narrow your choices down to only include donation apps that integrate with Salesforce.
Now, there are a few essential features you should look for in a Salesforce donation app before making a decision:
Intuitive Reporting
We touched on this point above, but it bears repeating. Use an integrated Salesforce donation app that doesn’t simply flow your data to your CRM; it should provide intuitive data options and features along the way.
For instance, it should allow you to associate each donation form with a specific campaign and even automatically create new donor profiles in Salesforce whenever you secure a gift from a new supporter. Without intuitive features like these, you might end up with a jumble of confusing campaign data that requires more time and overhead to sort out.
Full Customization Options
An effective donation app for your Salesforce platform should allow you to create as many separate donation pages as your organization needs and fully customize them to fit your campaigns. Offering donors options like predefined or custom donation amounts, recurring gifts, and newsletter sign-ups can go a long way to boost engagement.
Plus, it's essential that your donation pages fit with your organization's visual style and branding. Donors need to be assured of the donation form's security and trustworthiness whenever you ask them to input sensitive information. Visual branding and customizable text, images, and video reaffirm your organization's identity on these crucial pages.
Strong User Experience
With the rapid rise of smartphone web browsing, it’s more important than ever that your web pages function perfectly on small screens if you want to keep your audiences engaged. The same is true for your donation pages.
Look for a Salesforce donation app that provides mobile-responsive options. Otherwise, you risk turning away essential mobile donors.
Additionally, check that your donation app gives you options for which payment processing service you'd like to use. Providing donors with the option to donate using their PayPal account is always a smart move, especially when donors on the go might prefer not to enter their credit card information.
Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Options
Peer-to-peer fundraising has quickly become one of the most popular ways for nonprofits of all sizes to engage their donors, expand their communities, and raise support all at once. Look for a Salesforce donation app that offers simple peer-to-peer fundraising tools for your donors.
Let them set their own goals and create their own personalized donation appeals to share with friends! Just remember that peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns generate a lot of useful data, so having an integrated Salesforce donation app on hand can go a long way toward better understanding your supporters.
4. Salesforce Donation Apps in Action
We’ve already covered how choosing with the right integrated donation tools can make a huge difference for nonprofits already using Salesforce.
To recap: the value of seamlessly flowing information from your donation pages into your database can't be overstated, both because it helps your team more effectively manage its campaigns but also because it gives you more insight into how your fundraising and engagement techniques might be refined in the future.
Here's an example of how using the right tools on the right platform can be a game-changer for your organization.
The Global Fund for Women’s Philippine Crisis Fund
After Typhoon Haiyan made landfall in the Philippines, the Global Fund for Women mobilized its international base to raise support and help rebuild destroyed communities across the region.
During disaster relief fundraising campaigns, time is of the essence. Using the Soapbox Engage Salesforce donation app, the organization was able to quickly organize a campaign, publish their donation pages, and start spreading the word.
Such a rapid response by the organization, coupled with the ease of creating fully-integrated campaign pages with a donation app, helped them tap into a powerful global spirit of philanthropy; 94% of the Philippine Crisis Fund's gifts were made online, raising more than $75,000.
Plus, offering flexible payment processing options like PayPal made a huge difference in the effectiveness of the campaign. 16% of the campaign's online gifts were processed through PayPal, and 20% of the Global Fund for Women's online gifts have been processed via PayPal since then.
The long-term value that their integrated Salesforce donation app generated for future fundraising efforts was substantial. More than a third of their typhoon relief campaign's donors were brand new supporters whose contact information was seamlessly recorded in their Salesforce CRM.
The success of this campaign not only helped the organization pursue its mission of helping women and girls recover from the natural disaster, but it also significantly grew their base of support to engage in future campaigns. Read the full case study to learn more about the Global Fund for Women's successes.
Nonprofit organizations of all sizes rely on the Salesforce platform to manage their operations, engage their donors, and keep all their data organized and useful. If your organization uses Salesforce but doesn't use an integrated donation app, it's time to make a change.
Integrated Salesforce apps can be game-changers for nonprofits that are interested in streamlining their work and maximizing the value of their data.
To learn more about how nonprofit apps that integrate with Salesforce can benefit your organization, continue your research with a few additional resources:
- Increase Salesforce Community Engagement Without Pressing a Button. When properly configured, Salesforce is a powerful marketing platform to draw from your wealth of data! Get started with drip marketing to see engagement results.
- Event Registration Tools by Soapbox Engage. Explore our event registration offerings, designed to work flawlessly with your existing Salesforce system.
- Protect Your Salesforce Org from Spam with One Easy Trick. What’s the best way to protect your Salesforce account from spammers? Catch them in the act!
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