Promoting a vibrant nonprofit community throughout New York State

The New York Council of Nonprofits (NYCON) seeks to develop and promote an effective charitable nonprofit community throughout New York State. They do this by strengthening organizational capacity, unifying voices, informing philanthropic giving, and conducting research to demonstrate relevance and impact. NYCON has been instrumental in New York’s nonprofit sector growth and development for over 90 years, helping thousands of nonprofits harness their internal capacity and meet their challenges.

Serving such a broad community of nonprofits, NYCON needed affordable, reliable engagement tools to support and foster their member network. Prior to Soapbox Engage, NYCON used several third party products across multiple platforms. They wanted a solution that could consolidate and automate their workflow, while integrating with their CRM, Salesforce.

Luckily, the Soapbox Engage suite of online engagement tools filled multiple NYCON needs related to membership management and project management activities. With the help of the Soapbox Engage Portal, Events, Directories, Forms, and Donations apps, NYCON could consolidate their efforts into one platform.

Providing member access to 3,000 nonprofits with the Soapbox Engage Portal app

With a membership of nearly 3,000 nonprofit organizations, NYCON wanted a way to deliver exclusive value to paying members. The Soapbox Engage User Integration app (or Portal app) allows them to do this by segmenting access to various resources, discounted tickets, and pages based on membership status— all by providing user-specific access to data stored in Soapbox Engage or Salesforce.

With simple, elegant, and customized design, the Portal makes viewing NYCON member status a breeze. Unique-to-the-member renewal links can be featured prominently on the portal landing page, so anyone who logs in can clearly see their membership status and renew their membership in just a few easy steps.

Driving member participation with the Soapbox Engage Events app

Some of NYCON’s biggest value drivers for members are the webinars, trainings, and conferences they offer. With the Soapbox Engage Events app, NYCON has the ability to create an unlimited number of events while offering free or for fee ticket types. The Events app allows them to set up regular priced tickets for non-members, and discounted or free tickets for members. When setting up an event, it is easy to set ticket capacities, gather attendee information through standard or custom fields, and customize the event details with text, images, or videos.

With the Events app, NYCON also has the ability to track the success of a given event and determine which marketing campaigns are generating the most registrations. It is simple to create and share tracking URLs that save data to Salesforce with each registration, allowing NYCON to refine their marketing tactics and ultimately improve their member participation.

Multiplying member value with the Soapbox Engage Forms and Directories apps

As another value-driver, NYCON offers a nonprofit job board, with members able to post unlimited job openings at no cost. They built a custom object in Salesforce to house individual job postings, and then connected the Soapbox Engage Forms app to allow members and non-members to post their job openings. The process is simple: an org submits a job opening through the form, the openings appear in Salesforce, where the NYCON Membership manager approves them with a click. The listings then go live on the NYCON website using the Soapbox Engage Directories app.

In addition to housing their nonprofit job board, NYCON uses the Directories app to facilitate a searchable directory of corporate partners. Their Corporate Partnership program allows for-profit service providers who work with nonprofit clients to pay a membership fee to be added to their directory and receive promotional benefits. Many of these corporate partners offer members-only discounts, providing value to NYCON members, while offering complimentary services that NYCON members are seeking. It’s a win-win!

From arts and culture, to human services, to environmental conservation, historical preservation, and education, NYCON has helped maximize countless nonprofit missions. To their members, they proudly claim, “Your work is our work. Your goals are our goals.” Soapbox Engage is proud to partner with NYCON to streamline their operations and increase their impact that radiates through thousands of New York nonprofits.