In This Article: Author cloudStack Team

Why you should consider Salesforce NPSP for your nonprofit

If you're tired of managing your nonprofit in Excel, Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) may be the alternative you need to make nonprofit management easier than ever.

You’ve been resilient in the face of adversity for months, and with the pandemic showing no signs of slowing down just yet, you’re finally coming to terms that you’ve waited long enough (maybe too long) to modernize your nonprofit. 

You’ve heard of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology, but how do you choose when there are hundreds of options?  You don’t have the time, or the energy, to weigh all the costs and benefits of each one. So, you need to be certain that you’re choosing the best one for you right out of the gate. 

No pressure, right?

What is a CRM?

Let’s begin with the basics. 

As mentioned above, CRM stands for  “Customer Relationship Management”. Except in this case, as a nonprofit, you don’t have customers. Instead, you have donors, clients, board members, affiliate organizations and volunteers. And you need to track and manage all of those relationships to satisfy all the moving parts of your organization’s operations and mission.

A CRM is also an orderly way to segment and slice the data to make informed decisions that convert to fundraising success.

Say goodbye to the dreaded nonprofit administrivia

No doubt, a CRM can strengthen and expand opportunities that support your core mission.

From segmenting supporters by interest areas, to maintaining strong constituent relationships, to tracking membership activities, and simplifying the donation process, a CRM can empower your nonprofit to manage your data effectively and confidently.

What should the right CRM do?

  1. It actively tracks and manages your constituent information.
  2. It connects your entire team from any device.
  3. It intelligently captures constituent emails/details.
  4. It simplifies repetitive tasks so you can concentrate on your mission.
  5. It delivers insights and recommendations.

And another key factor in picking a nonprofit CRM is it can extend and customize as your nonprofit grows.

(Did you know there are more than 4000 preintegrated apps on the Salesforce Appexchange??)

Why Salesforce for Nonprofits?

The cloudStack team has spent years answering the “why” for nonprofits. Here are our top 5 reasons the Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack is a preferred choice for nonprofits.

1. Simplify team collaboration

 

In today’s ever-evolving nonprofit world, flexible and remote work options are becoming more common. But if your team is scattered in different locations, it can be easy to keep heads down, focused on work. Your nonprofit CRM can keep you and your team connected. Here’s how with Salesforce’s Nonprofit Success Pack.

  • Chatter – Chatter is great for posting updates, asking questions, having discussions and making announcements. There’s also a Chatter group if there’s a specific nonprofit topic you want to keep the team focused on and daily notification settings to keep you updated as often as you’d like.
  • Quip – Looking for a mobile-friendly way to create and share documents, spreadsheets, chat and tasks in the cloud? Quip can fully integrate with the Salesforce NPSP platform, offer quick feedback and collaborate quickly and efficiently.

fundraisingManager for Salesforce for nonprofits

 

2. Manage all donations and income in real time.

 

For nonprofits, fundraising is the most valuable asset for future growth and success. But it also comes with overwhelming, repetitive manual tasks if daily donations hasn’t been automated. We’ve built an application for the Salesforce NPSP platform that’ll will remove all of that manual work so you can get back your time to do work that is more valuable to your organization.

Salesforce NPSP + fundraisingManager = Fundraising gamechanger

  • Step 1: Install a customizable, bilingual website form for your donors
  • Step 2: Instantly process, acknowledge, and provide CRA – compliant donation receipts for your donors
  • Step 3: Sync your donations to QuickBooks Online with our financeManager integration tool
  • Step 4: Get back to your donors and your mission by bidding farewell to manual nonprofit administrivia

3. Insightful reporting to measure your nonprofit’s success

 

For many small and medium nonprofits, time is the most valuable asset. Perhaps you’re a small team, pulled in many directions, and trying to find out what is and isn’t working for your nonprofit often feels like a shot in the dark. You may find yourself asking: “What information should we be collecting? How should we be collecting it? And, how are we going to analyze and extract the most useful information?”

With Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack + fundraisingManager, you can instantly store and report on all incoming donor data. You’ll also be able to:

  • Determine the geography of your giving base
  • Measure engagement based on donation amount and frequency, and
  • See which campaigns are working well and which ones aren’t

Over 50 out-of-the-box reports come with the standard Salesforce NPSP product. Need something specific? The cloudStack team can do that for you.

Salesforce donor management with Salesforce NPSP

4. As your nonprofit grows Salesforce for nonprofits can grow with you

 

As an organization that exclusively serves nonprofit professionals, cloudStack Services recognizes that for nonprofits, budget is often the key decision-maker for everything within the organization. Convincing boards to support technology initiatives, getting staff onboard and even finding the time to invest in the migration journey are all enormous hurdles.

Ultimately, the goal of implementing Salesforce NPSP is to have it serve your nonprofit’s current needs and often this is fundraising. But as you develop and your organization expands its services or adds more goals, having a platform that can grow with you will prevent the need to migrate AGAIN to fulfill your new needs.

And that’s why Salesforce has thousands of possible integrations that can support your nonprofit’s continued growth when it’s the right time like:

  •  Email integrations: Gmail, Outlook
  • Marketing integrations: Pardot, Hubspot, Campaigner, Marketing Cloud, Tableau
  • Accounting integrations: QuickBooks, Brickwork, Accounting Subledger
  • Email marketing: Constant Contact, Campaigner, Pardot, Mailchimp
  • Community engagement: Volunteers for Salesforce
  • Program management: Docusign, Nonprofit Cloud Case Management
  • Event management: : Eventbrite, EventSpark, TicketManager

5. End siloed data and systems that can’t communicate

 

Since March 2020 the workplace has drastically changed. Nonprofit teams, who for years were meeting in-person to discuss the day-to-day operations, suddenly found themselves trying to recreate the same arrangement from home.

Teams found themselves struggling to work together with siloed software that sometimes wasn’t even on the cloud.

This forced many nonprofits to rethink their needs, how they do business, and the ability to have one integrated, automated platform to use across the entire organization.

Not only can the Salesforce NPSP platform natively provide fundraising, marketing, communications, events and more all on the same CRM, it’s also available to nonprofit employees anywhere there’s an internet connection. Being highly secure and hosting data both in Canada and the U.S., Salesforce NPSP can magnify your impact from anywhere in the world with its integrated platform.

Salesforce for Nonprofits speaks for itself

Ultimately, the benefits of Salesforce for Nonprofits speaks for itself.

According to a Salesforce NPSP survey, 89% of Salesforce Nonprofit cloud customers say Salesforce has helped improve their ability to achieve their mission.

This is in direct contrast to the 6% of nonprofit professionals that feel confident that their nonprofit data is being used effectively.

Don’t let your nonprofit continue to flounder. cloudStack services welcomes the opportunity to support your nonprofit team. Let’s book a time to discuss how.

Let us help you get started

See why North American nonprofits rely on fundraisingManager to manage donors, volunteers, communications, marketing, and much more.
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The cloudStack Resources

The cloudStack Blog is a collection of articles and resources written by our in-house development team. 

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