Soapbox Engage Blog

When the cherry blossoms arrive, it's spring in DC. Okay, it hit 37F a few days ago, but darn it, I'm calling it spring! So, first step: immediately fly south to New Orleans for our first NPSP Day in Louisiana and the Nonprofit Technology Conference.

If you're heading to the NTC this week, you'll find me there with the penguins. Confused? Don't worry, you'll get it when you see it. Meanwhile, enjoy this week's serving of Salesforce knowledge!

Don't forget, you can have the goodness of the PUB Crawl delivered into your inbox each Monday morning by subscribing today!

Hey, so I know we just met but is there any chance you can come over and dogsit for me this weekend?

Too much? Too soon? We do hardly know each other, right? It probably would be best to get to better acquainted before I hit you up for favors, eh? Maybe we can grab some coffee to get to know each other first? Yes. Coffee first. Dog later.

Just as personal relationships require time and steps to develop before both parties are willing to invest something of substance so, too, your nonprofit’s relationship with its would-be donors requires nurturing. Your first ask being a donation ask won’t necessarily be a winner. Just with my dog sitting, you need to grow into it. So, what’s the nonprofit version of asking someone out for coffee?

We’re so glad you asked! Here are five tactics your organization can use to grow your community before asking them for donations. Each falls on what is commonly referred to as a “commitment curve” or “ladder of engagement,” They get you from that introduction to getting an email address to growing engagement to finally getting someone to watch my dog, er, I mean, winning a new donor.

My hope for you, wherever you are, is that you're not experiencing the endless cold winter that seems to be plaguing us in Washington DC. Even my penguin buddy here in the Soapbox Engage offices has been caught turning up the heat. Ah, it was just week ago that I was spending a warm day with our NPSP community down in Cape Town. If only I could have packed some warm weather in my carry-on.

The good news is that with the holiday weekend that some of us celebrated this weekend now behind us, I can get refocused on the things that really matter: exactly where did I hide those eggs? Also, Salesforce!

Alright, ignore my winter blues, grab a warm beverage, and dig deep into this week’s PUB Crawl.

Don't forget, you can have the goodness of the PUB Crawl delivered into your inbox each Monday morning by subscribing today!

Cape Town, South Africa, is about as far away from Salesforce's San Francisco headquarters as you can get. It's also the epicenter of some of the best community collaboration in our ecosystem. At last week's NPSP Day, the work of community leaders and supporters like Sam Vos, Annakie Gammon, Rowen Ravera, Jacquie Besselaar, and Themba Mazibuko (to name only a few) was on display for the world to see, and the result was fantastic. It was the 4th largest NPSP Day, held the most speed-geeks (by double!), and delivered the most ah ha moments I've ever seen.

The South African Salesforce non-profit community is a proud community that on a daily basis is leveraging its internal strength to support its own network. I can't articulate effectively the impact it has already had on my view of what we can do as a community even when we feel quite far from the center of the action. Just as I've learned in all my open source community work, the strength of this open source community isn't only at its center of mass. It's also located in its local network.

While pondering where we can further strengthen local communities that might feel distant from San Francisco, here's your weekly serving of community knowledge...live from the friendly skies back to DC!

Don't forget, you can have the goodness of the PUB Crawl delivered into your inbox each Monday morning by subscribing today!

After two overnight flights in a row, at some point, I'll make it down to South Africa for the first NPSP Day on the African continent. I've been lucky enough to speak in Cape Town a few times, but this time, it's special. Bringing together non-profit organizations from across the Western Cape, we'll have a chance as a community to enhance the benefit of Salesforce for groups that are doing powerful work in the region.

Also, Phil (our penguin) is hoping to meet some real penguin buddies at Boulders Beach.

Before you start your week, catch up on all of last week’s greatness with the PUB Crawl. Grab a pretzel (seems to be the choice of snack during my current layover) and dive into this week’s content roundup. Don’t forget to keep your questions, tips, and suggestions rolling into the HUB. You never know, you could end up in next week’s PUB Crawl!

Don't forget, you can have the goodness of the PUB Crawl delivered into your inbox each Monday morning by subscribing today!

As many in the NPSP/HEDA world return to their home communities after another successful open source community sprint, it's time to play catch-up on all that knowledge from the Salesforce world last week.

Didn't have time to keep up with all the HUB happenings while you were sprinting open source laps? I've got some awesome posts here in this week's PUB Crawl. Enjoy!

Don't forget, you can have the goodness of the PUB Crawl delivered into your inbox each Monday morning by subscribing today!

Out with February, in with March...and soon, but not soon enough, spring up here in the northern hemisphere! March also holds a historic first for our community: the first ever NPSP Day in Africa. I'll be packing up what friends share about the Salesforce.org Open Source Sprint happening today and tomorrow, and bringing the knowledge to the Cape Town community on March 22.

While the community is humming, take a moment to catch up on what's has been discussed around the HUB in this week's action packed PUB Crawl. Grab yourself a sweet treat and dive deep into this week’s content.

Don't forget, you can have the goodness of the PUB Crawl delivered into your inbox each Monday morning by subscribing today!

A/B testing your online donation forms can provide valuable insight to boost conversion rates and better fund your mission. What's more, if your online donation forms are integrated with a constituent relationship management tool, like Salesforce, these A/B tests can offer far more than just conversion rates with which to judge performance. But what should you test and what questions do those tests allow you to answer?

Here are ten A/B testing areas and what you can glean from each:

In our previous two blog posts here and here, we provided step-by-step instructions for creating reports in the Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack to evaluate the effectiveness of A/B tests of your online donation forms. For this recipe, we wrangle all twelve metrics onto a single dashboard so you can easily compare the performance of each form in the test.

For more background on this recipe, specifics on the A/B testing process, examples of what to test, and an overview of UTM codes for inbound marketing metrics, watch our webinar, Six Ways to Get Smarter with Your 2018 Fundraising.

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.

As I pull myself together after celebrating the US men's curling team gold medal run, I've realized that there's been a ton happening in the Salesforce world. But seriously, did you see that comeback? Incredible!

Meanwhile, I thought for a second that I'd aim to break some speed records skiing down this mountain last week, but reason took over really quickly. Après-ski called instead.

If you're coming back to the non-sport world after your Olympic focus, I've got just the right beverage for your needs from the the PUB Crawl bar of knowledge. Enjoy!

Don't forget, you can have the goodness of the PUB Crawl delivered into your inbox each Monday morning by subscribing today!

While Americans are taking the day to celebrate President's Day today, they're likely joining the rest of the world watching more records broken at the Olympics. Or studying up on their Salesforce knowledge!

Take a break from your work and perfecting of your curling game to check out this week’s PUB Crawl!

Don't forget, you can have the goodness of the PUB Crawl delivered into your inbox each Monday morning by subscribing today!

As the sun rises over the City by the Bay, I'm waking up to another day realizing that my dream of hurtling down a tube of ice still is left unfulfilled. I'm blaming outward-pointing feet for that.

At the same time, its Valentine's Day week here in San Francisco and the rest of the US. So, a little shout-out to the open source supporters in the NPSP Day, Power of Us Hub, and of course, the PUB Crawl subscriber community. Your energy and generosity keeps our non-profit community moving forward successfully. Much love to you.

As you dive into this week’s PUB Crawl, consider what you love most about the HUB or the Salesforce community. Maybe even share a virtual hug of support in the HUB. Then, grab a warm morning beverage and enjoy this week’s content roundup!

Don't forget, you can have the goodness of the PUB Crawl delivered into your inbox each Monday morning by subscribing today!

For those who cheered for "sports!" (and maybe "commercials!") last night, let me bring you up to speed on the action from last night's Super Bowl. Justin Timberlake dressed like a hipster hunter, one kid summarized our world's use of smartphones, and the birds defeated the revolutionaries.

With that cultural summary behind us, put your laptop on that empty pizza box (which can now be recycled in my home city of DC!), and walk through Salesforce knowledge sharing with me in this week's PUB Crawl!

Don't forget, you can have the goodness of the PUB Crawl delivered into your inbox each Monday morning by subscribing today!

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:

While I'm still working on my New Year's resolutions, it seems that 2018 has decided to come racing out of the gates. One of my first goals was to spread the NPSP Day tour to more communities. My second: remembering who shot JR Ewing. Luckily, I achieved both at NPSP Day Dallas last week. Okay, maybe just the first one.

With 18 more NPSP Days planned for the year, I have a feeling it’s going to be wheels up / wheels down lifestyle for me in 2018. Now if only there was a "deliver burrito" button above my seat.

Another Monday means another week of nonprofit goodness and Salesforce knowledge sharing. Start your week with a dose of knowledge from the community and possibly, a coffee with a stroopwafel.

Don't forget, you can have the goodness of the PUB Crawl delivered into your inbox each Monday morning by subscribing today!

Conversion rates (aka response rates) are the holy grail in fundraising metric tracking. Getting at this elusive figure can give you incredibly valuable insight into how much your appeal, well, appeals to donors. The calculation is simple, yet determining the true tactic behind the conversion can be more challenging.

It's time to flip up your tray tables and return your seat to its upright and locked positions. I'm kicking off the NPSP Day 2018 tour on Thursday with our first community unconference in Dallas, and excited for the year ahead!

For those of you who can't join us in Dallas, don't worry, there's plenty of opportunities to engage with the community in 2018. First, our team's very own Tim Forbes is hosting an important webinar on Thursday to help fundraisers prepare for the massive change likely coming our way with the new US tax law changes. Second, this Friday you can give a big virtual hug to fellow community members in the second non-profit HUB Office hours for 2018. Then, you can take a look at the growing list of cities announced for the planned 18 NPSP Days scheduled on 4 continents this year.

To get you prepared for the week, and before I go wheels up into the skies, take a moment to enjoy this week’s PUB Crawl. Grab a warm beverage of your choice and enjoy this week’s roundup of knowledge.

Don't forget, you can have the goodness of the PUB Crawl delivered into your inbox each Monday morning by subscribing today!