Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud: Powering Impact
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) tool can be a daunting task for any organization. For nonprofits with smaller staffs and limited budgets, it presents a myriad of challenges. But with Salesforce’s Nonprofit Cloud, it can be a walk in the park. From its cost-effectiveness to its ability to drive fundraising, donor engagement, and project success, the world’s #1 CRM helps empower nonprofits to new heights.
The Most Cost-effective Nonprofit CRM
For many smaller and medium-sized nonprofits, the biggest barrier to implementing a CRM solution is often the cost. This keeps these organizations operating out of ad hoc solutions that include everything from Google Sheets and Docs to free versions of Notion, with data spread out all over the place and manual entry for any updates, donations, or new contacts.
At B Local Georgia, an Atlanta-based nonprofit focused on the Georgia B Corp Community (of which Ad Victoriam Solutions, commonly referred to as AdVic® is a part), this was the case for them. “We’re a small, volunteer-led organization with no paid staff and a small budget that’s used to host community events. We couldn’t justify the expense that comes with software licenses, but we knew this was limiting our ability to scale,” B Local Georgia’s Board Chair, Nathan Stuck, told us.
But with Salesforce’s “Power of Us” program, which waives the first ten license fees, it was free to start using. For organizations like B Local Georgia, “free was a game changer,” Stuck stated. Between an MBA board fellow with previous Salesforce experience and the help of AdVic’s Victory Project, they were able to turn on Nonprofit Cloud and now use it to track attendees, promote events, and stay on top of the Georgia B Corp community’s needs.
Focus on Fundraising & Donor Engagement
For Raleigh-based nonprofit, A Place At the Table (APATT), they needed a CRM that could do more of everything. As a nonprofit restaurant, the staff is not only running a nonprofit, but they’re also open six days a week for breakfast and lunch and rely on sales, customer donations, and regular donor gifts for funding.
“We never had the time to focus on fundraising and donors,” Executive Director Maggie Kane confessed. “With Salesforce, the reports give us so much more visibility and we’ve been able to engage different levels of donors in different ways and it’s helped us raise more money,” she added.
Like B Local Georgia, APATT also took advantage of the Power of Us program to secure ten free licenses. But Kane also appealed to her board to allocate funds to hire AdVic, who also contributed some pro bono Victory Project hours, to fully implement and integrate some of their legacy software.
The investment was worth it. Not only have they increased fundraising, but they’ve also freed up time, including at the end of the year when donation receipts have to be mailed out. “Oh my God, it’s all automated now and I don’t dread all of the end-of-year bookkeeping,” Kane enthused. “We do love Salesforce.”
Measuring Program Effectiveness
When an incredible opportunity to partner with Creature Comforts’ Get Comfortable Foundation on an impactful literacy initiative in Athens, Georgia arose, local nonprofit Books For Keeps was excited to be a part of the program. However, given the high stakes of the pilot, they wanted to ensure they had the data to track and measure the program’s success.
With the help of AdVic, they applied for their free Salesforce licenses and received a grant from AdVic’s Victory Project to customize and implement the software. Together, they created a simple Jotform that allowed the program mentors to fill out a two-minute survey after every school visit, capturing data that included the student’s name, how many books were read, how long they engaged, and the level of engagement. Combined with reading aptitude test scores, Books for Keeps was able to determine the right recipe for success.
“As we prepare to expand to three schools in 2024, we were able to use that data to identify how frequently our mentors should engage with their mentees, how many books they should be reading, and even identify what kind of volunteer mentor to be recruiting,” Executive Director Justin Bray told us. He continued, “The ability to capture data in real-time, see it update on our dashboards, and slice it a million ways with the reporting functions went beyond our wildest dreams of what we thought Salesforce could do for us.”
The Best Nonprofit CRM
For any nonprofit, eliminating the cost of the first ten licenses is an incredible offer–and licenses beyond ten are highly discounted. Whether you have the budget to fully integrate all of your legacy software or you just plan on utilizing the features in the Nonprofit Starter Pack, Salesforce can take your CRM out of Google Suite and prepare you to scale your organization’s impact.
Additionally, it will free your team from administrative work and give you data-driven insights that drive donations, stakeholder engagement, and program success.
If you have questions about Nonprofit Cloud, you can reach out to AdVic here. We’re happy to help you weigh the pros and cons of the platform for your specific needs, as well as discuss potential implementation costs. You can also apply to our Victory Project by clicking here.
Related Resources:
More Social Impact Blogs from AdVic
Subscribe to the AdVic Salesforce Blog on Feedly:
