Seven ways to Drive Impact and Success by leveraging Salesforce for Fundraising

For decades, the nonprofit sector has struggled to assign adequate resources to various functions, from accounting and communications to marketing and fundraising. In particular, the fundraising aspect has drastically evolved in terms of scale, donor access, and fundraising channels.
However, nonprofit teams run up against bandwidth issues as they rush to get things done manually. Data is often scattered across multiple platforms and channels, and tracking donor communication becomes challenging. As nonprofits attempt to scale, they are susceptible to errors that can erode donor trust.
As is the case in most sectors, technologies like Salesforce solve many of these challenges. Here are some reasons why nonprofits should choose Salesforce for Fundraising.

Use a single unified platform

A common struggle every nonprofit face is disorganized data from donors and contacts. The risk of misplacing important information is high when done manually, and team members may end up replicating tasks across several platforms. Using Salesforce’s Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP), nonprofits can easily access all data, campaigns, and information under one unified platform.

Measure email campaign success

Emails are one of a nonprofit’s most important marketing tools during fundraising efforts. A well-crafted email campaign can build trust, engage donors, and inspire more people to donate. However, the measurability of email campaigns is a challenge for nonprofits. Using Salesforce for Fundraising gives team members access to key email metrics such as open and click-through rates and donations received. Email recipients can also be linked to giving or event registration pages.

Scale donor management

Donors are important stakeholders in a nonprofit growth trajectory. Unfortunately, many donors fall off the nonprofit’s radar due to a lack of investment in donor relationship management. However, with Salesforce for fundraising solutions, nonprofits can view a donor’s journey from the first communication. Automated donation tracking distinguishes between various donor categories and sends personalized acknowledgments to donors.

Targeted campaigns can be designed around a donor’s giving history. Additionally, the platform offers automated engagement plans—tasks and activities that can trigger meaningful engagement with donors. Moves management is a more strategic process based on hard data.

These capabilities empower fundraising professionals to focus on the most critical stakeholders in the fundraising process and strengthen donor relations.

End-to-end donation management

Nonprofits use various donation platforms to crowdfund their causes, but managing multiple platforms can be challenging. They can now integrate their preferred donation platforms with Salesforce’s NPSP platform via Salesforce Elevate, which streamlines admin-related tasks, acceptance and recording of payments, and enhances the donor experience.

Easy integration of third-party solutions

Nonprofits also leverage additional platforms such as event registration pages, peer-to-peer lending platforms, and online stores to increase outreach and trigger more donations. Instead of visiting multiple platforms, each can be easily integrated into a unified platform.

Map all accounting data

Accounting needs to be even more transparent and orderly when donor money is involved. Leveraging Salesforce’s accounting sub-ledger app makes it easy for your nonprofit’s accounting platform of record to connect to the main Salesforce fundraising platform. By aligning all fundraising data to your accounting partner platform, your fundraising data is prepared for your books, increasing financial transparency. Such streamlined financial data can help your nonprofit course-correct inconsistencies and identify potential donor opportunities.

Shift to data-driven fundraising

One of the most important benefits of leveraging tech-enabled fundraising solutions is the access to valuable data that is streamlined and available in one location. In addition, access to data empowers you to look at initiatives at either a macro or micro level.

You can understand how your campaigns are functioning, who are the top donors, the average donation per individual, how many campaigns are running, and the number of funds you intend to raise at any given time. In addition, you will have access to multiple customized dashboards to deliver the exact information you want. You can also download reports, share them with other stakeholders, and make accurate decisions based on data rather than guesses.

In conclusion

Transitioning to a tech-enabled platform such as Salesforce can be overwhelming for nonprofits. Instead, partner with a Salesforce Consulting Partner like DemandBlue for Salesforce for Fundraising solutions. We serve unique tech-enabled fundraising and donor management requirements for nonprofits of all types.

Our experts provide customized tools for tracking donations, managing donor data, and automating fundraising processes. We ensure that non-profits can easily streamline their work to achieve their mission.

With us by your side, you can give undivided attention to the core responsibilities like building donor stewardship and creating more real-time impact.