As we noted in a previous blog post, A/B testing your online donation forms can be a powerful practice, especially when you integrate those tests with the Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack. In this step-by-step recipe, we'll create a report and dashboards in Salesforce that will allow you to quickly analyze which form in your A/B test is performing best with respect to one-time vs. sustaining donations.

For more background on this recipe, a host of other metrics, and specifics on the A/B testing process, watch our webinar, Six Ways to Get Smarter with Your 2018 Fundraising.

A/B testing of your online donation forms can be a powerful practice for optimizing their performance and maximizing the funds your nonprofit raises online. Analyzing relative conversion rates for your A/B tests within a tool like Google Analytics is just the beginning of the insights you can gain in your A/B tests, though. By integrating your A/B test with the Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack, you can move beyond simple conversion analysis and compare performance across a host of metrics.

In this step-by-step recipe, we'll create a report and dashboards in Salesforce that will allow you to quickly see which form in your A/B test is performing best with respect to new vs. existing donors. For more background, a host of other metrics, and specifics on the A/B testing process, watch our webinar, Six Ways to Get Smarter with Your 2018 Fundraising.

With the significant changes to the U.S. tax system fostering predictions of a fall in charitable donations in 2018, it is critical that nonprofit fundraisers get the absolute most out of all of their fundraising activities. This includes maximizing the effectiveness of your online donation pages. One way to get smart, actionable data about your online fundraising efforts is to do A/B testing.

In this how-to recipe, we walk through steps for utilizing Campaign Hierarchies in Salesforce to evaluate A/B tests of your online donations form. This recipe focuses on two metrics: number of donations and total amount donated. For eleven more metrics addressing recurring donations, new donors, and more plus details on creating the A/B tests themselves, watch our free webinar, Six Ways to Get Smarter with Your 2018 Fundraising.

As the fundraising landscape shifts with the new tax law and total donations to all nonprofits is projected to drop 5% in 2018, it is critical that your fundraising efforts are wisely and effectively directed. But how do you know what’s wise and effective - and what’s all wrong?

Here are six key steps to ensure that the fundraising decisions you’re making are the right ones to fund your mission:

As the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve, we ushered in not only a new year but a new tax code that reshapes our economy in fundamental ways. With the doubling of the standard deduction to $12,000 for individuals and $24,000 for married couples, estimates project that as few as 10% of taxpayers will continue to itemize. This marked decrease means that donating to your nonprofit just got more expensive for most of your supporters since doing so won’t carry a tax benefit. Experts predict this to cause a drop in charitable donations of around $14 billion in 2018, or 5 percent of the $282 billion that nonprofits raised in 2016.

Key to responding to this changing charitable landscape is recognizing a fundamental fact: fundraising is primarily about a relationship. That relationship isn’t with the Internal Revenue Service. The key relationship is between your donor and your organization and its mission. Understanding that relationship and how it changes over time as your supporter moves through their donor journey is more critical now than ever.

But how?