Soapbox Engage Blog

It can be challenging to handle all the tech roles for your nonprofit. This is especially the case if you were given the role just because you happen to know your way around a computer. You likely want access to a few programs that will make it easier for you to manage your constituent and volunteer data. A reliable nonprofit CRM can help you with the most important tasks, such as managing donations and events, and with Salesforce as that CRM, you have at your disposal a great many apps that can make your job even easier. Here are two free apps that can aid with some of the tasks that come with running the technical side of your organization.

When working multiple tech roles, free nonprofit apps always help.

Field Trip by Qandor

When it comes to donor data, you want to make sure you have everything you need to contact your supporters. However, maintaining complete data is tricky, particularly if you have multiple staff entering records, large numbers of legacy fields that may not be of value any more, or data imported from other systems. The end result can be donor records without mail or email addresses or phone numbers. The worst are the ones without names, because then you don't know who you're talking to.

Field Trip, a free app available on the Salesforce AppExchange, can help you address that problem. It lets you analyze what fields have data across your standard or custom objects so you can pinpoint what is lacking. Doing so can help you identify the root causes of the missing data, coach staff on better data entry, discern which legacy fields it may be time to eliminate, and clean up imports from other data sources. The end result is more complete data, making constituents easier to reach during important drives.

Volunteers for Salesforce by DJH Consulting

You likely have volunteers coming in doing day-to-day work and covering big events, such as fundraisers or telethons. While it's great to have them around, it can be tricky to manage volunteers, and the process can be exactly like handling employees. They need shifts, assignments and performance reviews. You also want to know who is doing well overall. All of that can be hard to document, schedule and gauge if you're using spreadsheets, and can only make it difficult to manage the people most committed to your cause.

That's where Volunteers for Salesforce comes in. Instead of having to write down all your volunteer shifts on paper or in a spreadsheet, you can manage them through Salesforce. You can create timesheets for each volunteer, so you know when each and every person is working. You can also better leverage the CRM to create a full volunteer schedule, opening up free shifts for people who want to spend extra time with your nonprofit. Volunteers for Salesforce provides Sites pages that you can embed into your website for volunteer management or you can use Soapbox Engage in conjunction with Volunteers for Salesforce to facilitate that process on your website.

In addition, you can record information about your volunteers that makes them feel important. Imagine one of them going out of their way to help someone during an event, or earning multiple high-level donations during a telethon. You can enter those accomplishments and later use the info to inspire others within the organization. This can be passed along to your coordinators and managers, and they can place the best volunteers on unique assignments. In turn, your volunteers become your greatest allies.