Building faith and service-based communities worldwide

International Ministries (IM), also known as the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, works cross-culturally and globally to provide community and connection through faith. They host mission trips and volunteer opportunities for youth, emerging leaders, adults, and people of all skills and skill levels. Between short term and long term mission efforts, and in person and virtual trips, there are many ways IM involves community members in their work.

In the process of launching their new website, International Ministries began to look for a donation solution that could accommodate many different giving options, and Soapbox Engage fit their technical and budget requirements.

Little did they know, Soapbox Engage would also provide the solutions to many of their other online engagement needs! Flashforward to today, and International Ministries is leveraging the Soapbox Engage Donations, Directories, Events, and Portals apps!

Supporting numerous giving opportunities with the Soapbox Engage Donations and Portals apps

The mission and work of International Ministries spreads across many initiatives. Donors have the option to give to a specific effort or to make a general gift to the organization. Customizations to the Donations app make this choice a breeze, allowing donors to select giving opportunities with one click. They can choose to support initiatives such as Global Servant Support, World Mission Offering, Leadership Mission Support, Disaster Relief, IM General Fund, and more.

Life is easier for IM staff as well, thanks to the timesaving, seamless integration between Soapbox Engage and Salesforce. Now, important donor contact information and credit card gifts transfer automatically into Salesforce, reducing prior administrative burdens to IM staff. Reconciling with their credit card processor and completing any necessary transaction verifications is also much faster, since these instances are flagged and easy to note.

Most importantly, any time IM wants to update or add a new giving opportunity within Salesforce, this new opportunity automatically syncs to Soapbox Engage and displays beautifully on their donation form.

International Ministries makes the experience of donating to their organization highly personal. Using the Soapbox Engage User Integration (Portals) add-on, they allow donors to create a profile where they can login, update recurring donations, and download past donation receipts. IM staff posts annual receipts to the portal, which they have found to be a more effective and reliable way for donors to access receipts compared with their previous email method.

Expanding opportunity and involvement with the Soapbox Engage Directories and Events apps

The Soapbox Engage Directories app allows International Ministries to easily create an unlimited number of directories connected to their Salesforce instance. IM takes full advantage of this flexibility, using the Directories app in a number of ways. For instance, donors can search and choose giving opportunities from one directory, and applicants interested in volunteering can search and apply for service opportunities through another directory.

But donating and volunteering aren’t the only ways International Ministries involves community members in their work. That’s where the Soapbox Engage Events app comes in. Community members can register to attend events such as the World Mission Conference or the ABC Biennial Mission Summit with just a few clicks.

Prior to Soapbox Engage, International Ministries was using another solution that was much more expensive. After they had trusted Soapbox Engage for their donations needs for about 3 years, they made the switch to the Events app. Not only did this save the organization money, they also no longer needed to manually import their events into Salesforce!

International Ministries has grown and evolved over more than two centuries of ministry. It is the oldest international Baptist mission agency in North America. As IM continues to grow, Soapbox Engage will be there as a flexible service to match their ever-evolving needs and further their impact through online and in-person engagement opportunities.