We're just a few days away from the next NPSP Day in New York, and I can't wait to jump right back into the unconference mix here in the US after the NPSP Day tour took a two-stop jaunt overseas.

Community events like these not only increase knowledge, but open our minds to a more creative position. They give us a chance to exit the day-to-day work and focus on exploring new opportunities. As of yet, we haven't had a Play-Doh breakout (soon, maybe?), but just working together as a community to solve common challenges, we've created some pretty innovative ideas.

To make the countdown to Friday a bit easier, I've done my best to collect one of the largest set of Power of Us Hub posts. So, find a cozy spot, sit back, and indulge in this week's content roundup.

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We were all taught to say “thank you” when given a gift. Nonprofits are no different. Expressing timely and proper gratitude to donors when they make a gift to your organization is not only the right thing to do, it’s also key to cultivating sustaining donors and funding your mission.

The Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) provides a straightforward way to say thanks with a handy Email Acknowledgement button that triggers an automated email for one or multiple donations at a time. The beauty of the button is its simplicity with its use of a single email template with merge fields of your choice and letterhead you can customize to a degree. Whether that handy button and its simplicity is right for your organization depends on a few factors we’ll discuss below.

The opportunities to contribute to the increasing impact in our Salesforce non-profit world continue to grow. This week, I'm excited to highlight the great work of the NPSP Videography Team. They're a group of volunteers that wanted to see more organizations benefit from the Engagement Plans and Levels functionality in the NPSP, and delivered fantastic videos to make them more useful. All this without formal training in software video training, but a lot of heart and background in video to make an awesome end-product.

So while you're enjoying a tall glass of knowledge from the PUB Crawl this week, consider what unique talents you might have, and how you can bring those talents to our community to help us all continue to move the needle in the right direction.

Now, here's filled-to-the-top glass of Salesforce knowledge!

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It might be the beginning of summer in the northern hemisphere, but you wouldn't think it was vacation time in Salesforce world. As the Salesforce Summer 17 release rolls out this week, admins everywhere are digging into the newest features while wiggling toes into the sand.

Summer here in DC means more softball, humidity, and likely a pretty unforgettable week of politics. So while the world feels like it's gearing up for an endless news cycle, I'm going to pry myself away from the TV and cozy up to 500 pages of release notes. In spite of what we see on the TV these days of a divided world, the Power of Us Hub continues to be a the prime example of how we're better when we collaborate to solve tough challenges.

So turn off your TV news channel of choice, take a deep breath, and let's dive into some community goodness.

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Repeat donors are essential to successful fundraising efforts. They can also be notoriously difficult to come by, and are becoming more so. Between 2008 and 2015, donor retention across the nonprofit sector declined 8%. Overall, just 45% of donors come back and give again to an organization in the year after a gift. That number becomes even starker when looking at just first time donors who give again only 23% of the time.

What’s more, post-election realities have affected giving in ways that require nonprofits to innovate in their fundraising efforts. Lynne Wester, famed donor relations expert noted in her blog recently:

“With a finite amount of charitable giving and an ever increasing number of nonprofits, the dollars simply cannot stretch equitably to everyone. Meaning that if one nonprofit experiences a windfall, like the ACLU raising $24 million dollars in one weekend, six times its yearly totals, that this money comes from another nonprofit's bottom line.”

To compete, you must set yourself apart in a sea of nonprofits. One powerful way of doing so is by expressing exceptional gratitude.