Our September 2022 newsletter update!

Invest NOW to see a return on your nonprofit marketing.

Marketing. Sometimes it feels like throwing spaghetti at a wall and seeing how much “sticks”. One day you have a wildly successful Facebook post that gains you 10 new donors (yeah!). Then 2 weeks later your try a variation of the same post and cue the crickets.

So lets get advice from the best on how to ensure your nonprofit marketing doesn’t fall flat this Year End Giving season.

Cheers, the cloudStack Team

1. Try to please all and you will please none: If finding that sweet spot of communicating with your donors is difficult, let’s talk about one way you might relieve some of the stress in the system: Segmentation.
2. Connect with major donors, gain corporate sponsors, put out thought leadership, host events. LinkedIn is where its at these days for nonprofits.
3. Considering the use of video to connect with your donors but unsure where to start? Check out courses or training with Nonprofit Video Comms.
4. Marketing for nonprofit organizations is a blend of art and science. It starts with knowing your audience and what triggers an emotion or action. The CallHub team has rounded up and analyzed 5 incredibly successful nonprofit marketing campaigns to check out.
5. What is the Google Ad Grant and how does it work? This quick video gives you what you need to know to start utilizing one of the most powerful tools in nonprofit marketing.
6. Cheering for new company, Decklinks! They have an excellent (and reasonably priced) platform for putting together presentations for donors, boards and prospects alike.

Looking for CRM support in 2022? Get in touch with our team to learn more about cloudStack’s services and our trio of products: fundraisingManager, receiptManager and financeManager.

All built on the Salesforce platform.

Excerpts from our interview with nonprofit copywriter Amanda Cowart.

Common copywrite fails Cowart sees from nonprofits

Understanding the psychology and rationale behind donor giving has become the source of intense research. Almost 10 years ago, Scientific American released an article showing that the act of giving was more important to individuals than the act of receiving. 88% of respondents to a study conducted by StatsCan decided to give because their contribution was going to a cause they personally believed in. And donor engagement tips released by Global Giving indicates that donors are more likely to respond to a charitable ask that highlights a single person in need as opposed to a group.

As a nonprofit copywrite consultant, Cowart has unique insight into the mistakes nonprofits are making during their fundraising asks. Frequently, the first mistake is a lack of clear messaging. What is your mission, and how are you explaining it? This is the starting point for all the rest of your communications, emails and newsletters with current and potential donors. There should be no mission confusion.

Cowart often sees donors toss or delete messages that are too “beige”. Where’s the life? Who is the donor helping? If the message doesn’t inspire a connection to the cause at hand, you’re more likely to get a “meh” response, and no donation. Cowart believes connection inspires care, and that connection is critical because if donors don’t care, then they aren’t going to make a gift. This same concept applies to recruiting volunteers. Your message needs to not only tug at the heart strings, but also it needs to be actionable and concise to inspire donors to donate their money, time and energy.

Taking your fundraising message to the next level

When asked how she stands out as a consultant, Cowart knows where she shines. A long-time teacher to small children and with 3 of her own at home, Cowart has honed the art of deep listening. Her goal is to take a nonprofit’s mission and campaign message and put them on to a plate that is easily digestible for donors. Fundraising copywrite is successful in Cowart’s experience by using very clear and actionable writing, a strong Call-To-Action and answering the question of “who cares?” for the reader.

And if creating inspiring fundraising copy feels overwhelming for your nonprofit, Cowart has 3 critical skills she would suggest you search for when hiring a nonprofit copywrite consultant.

1. A Someone who knows enough about tracking communications data that they can keep an eye on the numbers and identify the trends of your campaigns.
2. An excellent listener. Your copywriter should be able to meet with your team and synthesize your message to create a fundraising journey for your donors.
3. A straight shooter. Consultants should be upfront about expectations, whether they be financial or time-based. The process shouldn’t be uncomfortable, and it should eliminate misinterpretations and unmet expectations.

Final Notes

In takeaway from our interview we asked Cowart what her top 3 strategies nonprofits should implement in their nonprofit copywriting.

1. A clear mission and purpose that everyone (staff, board, volunteers, members, donors) easily understands. It is hard to fundraise on the premise, “Donate to us so we can help people.” Rather something like, “Help end child marriages by sponsoring young girls’ education, their ticket out of poverty.”
2. Have at least one champion or advocate on your board who understands the big picture goals of the nonprofit as well as staff needs. Find someone who knows how to talk about the nonprofit, can recruit volunteers and pitch in when needed. Every nonprofit should have at least a person or two who knows it, lives it, loves it and promotes it.
3. Invest in a CRM for keeping track of donors and volunteers. Tracking the success of your fundraising copywrite, who can help you strategize where your next ask should be directed, will add to your fundraising success in the long term. (Our team would love to support your nonprofit!)

Looking for CRM support in 2022? Get in touch with our team to learn more about cloudStack’s services and our trio of products: fundraisingManager, receiptManager and financeManager.

All built on the Salesforce platform.

Sending the same donation letter to everyone could be wasting resources at best, and potentially hurting your relationships with them at worst.

So how can a nonprofit like yours “please everyone”?

Unfortunately, you can’t…but…

Here’s what we do know after working with hundreds of nonprofits over the years:

There are better ways to communicate with your supporters than by throwing spaghetti at a wall and to see what sticks.

Or worse, ghosting your audience until it’s time to ask for a gift.

If finding that sweet spot of communicating with your donors is difficult, let’s talk about one way you might relieve some of the stress in the system: Segmentation.

Steps to segmenting your list:

If it seems like segmenting is a no-brainer, you’re right. However, it’s not always easy to execute in practice.

1. Start small — choose one or two areas to focus on and test it out. You can always revisit and adjust your segments as you learn more about your audience.
2. Determine your messaging strategy for each segment. Will you write a unique message for each segment, or simply change a small part (a line, a paragraph, the offer, the ask)?
3. Develop key message themes you’d like to send out regularly (appeals, receipts, thank you’s; newsletters, emails, surveys)
4. Decide how often (weekly, monthly, quarterly) and through which media channels (social, email, direct mail) you’ll communicate with each segment.
5. Track as much data as you can from each segment and use that data to make adjustments in your subsequent communications.

Overcoming hurdles

In an ideal world, communication between an organization and its supporters should be ongoing, relevant to their lives, and done through the channel(s) that they (the supporters) prefer.

The most difficult challenge to overcome is bad data. Wrong, missing, outdated, or duplicate information can lead to some folks being left out and others getting double-asked.

If your organization is currently using a spreadsheet for your constituent information, you might find it difficult to track key segmentation data. It’s also hard to sort by multiple characteristics in a spreadsheet and not end up with mistakes or duplicate emails being sent to the same person.

How can you segment efficiently?

With a good system.

Investing in a CRM with great reporting capabilities such as fundraisingManger by Salesforce, might be a logical next step. Looking for your LYBUNTs? Your volunteers? Your donors over $5,000? A master database with all your donor and constituent information allows you pull segmented lists with just a few clicks.

In the end, personalization matters a great deal to your organization’s bottom line, and it doesn’t have to be complicated. So if you’re not yet segmenting your lists, I hope this article gave you some food for thought and a little inspiration to give segmentation a try.

Looking for CRM support in 2022? Get in touch with our team to learn more about cloudStack’s services and our trio of products: fundraisingManager, receiptManager and financeManager.

All built on the Salesforce platform.

If finding that sweet spot of communicating with your donors is difficult, let’s talk about one way you might relieve some of the stress in the system: Segmentation.

Be honest, have you ever used one of these strategies for communicating with your nonprofit community members?

• Emailed the same message to everyone on your list, every time.
• Rarely communicated so as not to “bother” anyone.
• Relied on just one or two channels to get your message out.

If so, you are not alone!

Most organizations we’ve worked with have struggled with at least one, if not more of these communication challenges.

And that’s because trying to please everyone using the exact same methods and strategies is impossible.

If finding that sweet spot of communicating with your donors is difficult, let’s talk about one way you might relieve some of the stress in the system: Segmentation.

What is segmentation?

Segmenting means dividing your supporters into groups with similar characteristics.

For example, a school might segment their database into current parents, alumni, and parents of alumni. Each of those groups could be further segmented into decades or by individual class year.

By speaking to a smaller group of people within your community, you can send a message that speaks directly to them and connects over a shared experience or common interest.

Segmenting has huge benefits. It has been shown to increase click-thru rates on email campaigns by 15% according to MailChimp! Hands down, it’s the best way to ensure each of your constituent groups get what they need at the right time.

So how do you segment a group of supporters?

That’s the million-dollar question! Truthfully, it will vary from organization to organization, and the possibilities are endless.

Here are some basics to consider:

• Giving history
• Event attendance
• Relationship to organization
• Demographic info
• Behavior
• Preferred communication method
• Interests

Let’s take a closer look at these categories.

Giving History

Giving history, including gift date and amount, is the one single marker that every organization, regardless of size, should be segmenting for.

Why? Because you most likely wouldn’t send the same “thank you for your gift” response to a person who just gave $50 as the person who have $5,000, at least not with a separate follow-up and stewardship plan.

Their levels of investment are very different, and they’d expect different levels of engagement from your organization in return.

Event Attendance

Whether you hold an auction, gala, race, meeting, or other event, consider tracking attendees as well as no-shows. After the event, you can easily sort and customize the message from “thanks for attending” to “sorry we missed you”. It also becomes much easier to invite past attendees in the future. Relationship to Your Organization

Who volunteers for you? Who serves on your board of directors? Who participates in your programs? Knowing who does what is key to personalizing your communications.

It might be a single line of text that differs from one group to another, or you might have an entirely separate communication strategy. Whatever the case may be, put yourself in your supporters’ shoes and think, “How do I feel when I read this?”

Reading a “Dear Friend, thank you for your support” letter is much different than the one that says, “Hi Debbie, thank you for volunteering at the Linky Din 5K!”

Delight your people with personalization, and they will return the favor.

Demographic Info

Should you track things like age, gender, geographic location, income level, marriage status, and the like? Sure! If you can.

Generationally, we can see trends in giving and philanthropic interests, although we’d also caution that making assumptions based solely on any one of these characteristics could flop.

That said, you might have a case where you’re appealing specifically to women and want to highlight a shared experience. Or perhaps your national organization is serving a unique need in a particular city or province, so segmenting by location could be very helpful.

However you decide to segment based on demographic information, put some careful thought into your plan.

Behaviour

Segmenting by behaviour is a terrific way to target a very specific audience. In fact, some CRMs and email platforms will do it automatically for you.

For example, what if you saw that a whole bunch of people opened your last email but didn’t click through? Perhaps you could send a follow-up note just to those people who showed interest and entice them with a very personalized message.

This is a powerful way to send targeted communications through email, and it might be worth looking into.

Preferred Communication Method

One version of the golden rule is to communicate with supporters the way they communicate with you:

• Do they text you after you leave a voicemail? Text that person back.
• Are they quick with email? Great, make sure they’re on your email list.
• Don’t have an email but respond to your direct mail appeals? Keep sending those letters — it’s working!

To get this information, consider sending out a survey with the communication options that you can accommodate. It doesn’t do any good if you provide a list of 6 or 7 methods that you can’t honor.

Interests

Your nonprofit might have a single focus, or you could have several arms that work together to solve a problem. If you’re able to speak to people who are really interested in one particular area of your organization, by all means, try to segment them out.

For example, a large medical nonprofit might send a research-focused newsletter to their science lovers. Another segment might be focused on education initiatives, patient success stories, or tales from the front-line workers.

No matter the size of your organization, segmenting by interest can keep engagement up and help reduce the number of unsubscribes to your email list.

Looking for CRM support in 2022? Get in touch with our team to learn more about cloudStack’s services and our trio of products: fundraisingManager, receiptManager and financeManager.

All built on the Salesforce platform.

What nonprofits should look for when partnering with a brand

For nonprofits, raising awareness and raising money is the why to everything they do. By partnering with a company, nonprofits can expand their campaign’s reach and hit fundraising goals more quickly.

And while it may seem like a win-win, there are certain best practices nonprofits should follow to ensure the campaign is a success.

1. Know your partner’s market and reach

Gain a better understanding of your partner’s demographic and market reach. Will they be interested in supporting your cause? Do they have anything in common with your audience? This is important for broadening your audience for future campaigns, and that’s not doable if the partner audience isn’t likely to actively support your mission.

2. Find a common mission

According to members of Forbes’ Business Development Council, just as brands should look for a cause they believe in, nonprofits should also seek out a brand with a shared common mission and the resources to help meet their goals.

3. Align your values

When pondering a collaboration, ask whether the company is socially responsible as a corporation, and whether it represent the values of your nonprofit. Focusing on the greater campaign outcomes, while not compromising either party’s values and mission, is vital.

4. Align your goals, too

Nonprofits should also choose brands that have integrity and are aligned with their goals and desired outcomes. Setting expectations from the get-go and maintaining check-ins throughout the campaign are crucial to the success of a long-term partnership.

5. Develop clear roles

Be clear on what each person in the partnership is doing. Is everyone aligned on what the partnership is for and about? More importantly, is each party benefiting equally? It’s also important to determine each party’s strengths and weaknesses and what each side can bring to the table.

6. Seek long-term partnerships

Making a positive difference in the world doesn’t happen overnight, so nonprofits should look for long-term alliances with companies, when possible. A long-term partnership is important to improve social impact and find new market opportunities. However, you must stay flexible. As time goes on, the partnership will evolve and you need to be open to changes.

Looking for CRM support in 2022? Get in touch with our team to learn more about cloudStack’s services and our trio of products: fundraisingManager, receiptManager and financeManager.

All built on the Salesforce platform.

Belts appear to already be tightening — its time for creativity and innovation to rule the roost to increase #fundraising efforts.

Unlike traditional marketing with the main goal of driving profits, cause marketing has brands partnering with nonprofits to give back and do good.

It’s not entirely selfless, however. This type of partnership also raises a brand’s profile and perception, which can lead to consumers feeling good about supporting an organization who donates to charity, spending more, and thus increasing the company’s bottom line.

Here are some takeaways we have put together on how brands can do cause marketing well.

1. Choose a cause you believe in

Cause marketing will work to your benefit if the cause is something that your employees can get behind, put in the effort and feel good about helping. Some employees may even feel encouraged to volunteer.

Actually, paid time off for volunteering is one of the few employee benefits that has increased considerably in recent years. According to Statistics Canada, in 2018, roughly 34% of employed Canadians had an employer-based program or policy to encourage formal volunteering.

2. Find a cause related to your industry

Support a cause that show’s your company’s values, and makes people associate your brand with helping that cause after the campaign is well over.

For example, if your company manufactures and sells sports equipment, you might consider partnering with an organization that helps disadvantaged kids with the financial support they need to get involved in youth sports. Your campaign goal could focus its community outreach efforts on raising awareness about the sports program and driving donations to ensure kids have equal access to sport and recreation. Canadian Tire Jumpstart has been particularly good at this.

3. Raise awareness while raising funds

Although money is helpful to all nonprofits, donating your expertise is just as valuable. Companies should add social good directly into their business and make raising awareness a priority.

For example, Sun Life Financial has made prevention of diabetes and its complications an important cornerstone of its donations and global sponsorships. One of the company’s partnerships, Sun Life Dunk for Diabetes, encourages healthy habits through basketball-inspired fitness challenges, nutrition education, healthy snacks and encouragement from the Toronto Raptors and the National Basketball Association.

4. Collaborate with the nonprofit

For a rewarding partnership, get clear on what both parties expect or want from the arrangement. Maybe you connect the nonprofit with community leaders, partners and other resources, and they help boost your brand’s visibility by adding your logo to campaign-related marketing materials shown at charity events, on their website and social media. Clearly define how to use your company’s branding in a marketing campaign, and how the key messages can align both the nonprofit and your business.

5. Make social and earned media a top priority

Create clear content that can easily be adapted or repurposed to suit different multiple media channels to drive engagement and maximize the effectiveness of your campaign.

Canadian Red Cross did this well when it came to spreading the message about ice safety. Following a sea shanty trend that would generate billions of views globally, the organization was inspired to create their own version. Their video has had 2.3 million views on social media, with further clips coming from members of the organization’s digital volunteer program. You don’t have to be available on all social media platforms. But what matters is to create an impact on a few that you are present on.

Looking for CRM support in 2022? Get in touch with our team to learn more about cloudStack’s services and our trio of products: fundraisingManager, receiptManager and financeManager.

All built on the Salesforce platform.

The last couple months have been enlightening.

Our team has noted a real shift in the conversations surrounding nonprofit technology — maybe it is a product of the pandemic, of geographically diverse teams, or an acknowledgement that nonprofit tech can be an additional teammate.

Either way we are EXCITED by this months resources of new tech, new resource articles and an eye to the future of nonprofits.

1. Tired of managing the REAL costs of grants? — Streamline and automate every stage of the grant cycle so grantmakers and grantseekers can recapture the 20% of grant funding lost to manual administrative tasks. Check out Atlas Solutions.
2. Execute your strategic vision with the team of Mission Met —With either software, courses or one-to-one services discover nonprofit strategic planning services to meet your needs.
3. Don’t leave money on the table , discover fundraisingManager for Salesforce — Be able to say “Yes!” to all potential donations with a better process for receiving, processing and reporting on gifts-in-kind.
4. Staying human-centred with the Smart Nonprofit — Create a “dividend of time” with this pragmatic framework for nonprofit digital transformation. Embrace the human-centered nature of your organization and make use of a road-map that offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to remake work and accelerate social change.
5. The rise of nonprofit technology in 2022 — How did nonprofits that invested in technology at the beginning of the pandemic differ from those who haven’t? How has work from home changed the need for software?
6. Watch out for these nonprofit trends — Explore six trends in nonprofit technology that will help you raise more money and win more campaigns.

Looking for CRM support in 2022? Get in touch with our team to learn more about cloudStack’s services and our trio of products: fundraisingManager, receiptManager and financeManager.

All built on the Salesforce platform.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Learn more at cloudstackservices.com . Based in Toronto, Ontario cloudStack Services has over 30 years of combined experience on the Salesforce platform.

We’re in a time where supporters have come to expect highly personalized, customer-centric experiences. Technology that’s dated or hasn’t kept up with your organization can prevent you from delivering a great donor experience, working more efficiently, and ultimately raising more funds.

That’s why a CRM is a necessity.

You can weed out which parts of your operational process are time-wasters, giving you more time to focus on the important stuff.

Here are four reasons why a nonprofit CRM is a great investment.

1. Strengthen donor loyalty

Without donors, nonprofits can’t stay afloat. So, treat them like the valuable assets that they are.

According a 2021 study from the Fundraising Effectiveness Project, Americans opened their wallets in 2020 increasing donations by 10.6% during the pandemic. The biggest boost was from new donors who gave more small-dollar gifts (even though at the same time, donor retention dropped by 4.1%)

People gave to organizations they hadn’t given to before, says the report. What this means is, there’s large opportunity for nonprofits to engage and nurture these new supporters for the long term, and talk about the good work they’re accomplished because of the support.

Handling and nurturing donor relationships with an outdated, manual system is a colossal task that involves many steps, people and responsibilities. Imagine how awful it would be to forget thanking donors for their gifts.

A reliable CRM has features that make relationship management easier, so nobody gets missed. For instance, you can record every donor interaction you’ve ever had and what their giving habits are. You can set up reminders to send phone calls or thank you letters to major donors that they won’t forget.

2. Let your data do the heavy lifting

Analytical CRM tools make your piles of data available, clear, and relevant to your nonprofit’s needs. It can even serve up those “a-ha” moments to be better every year.

To make critical, real-time decisions, you have to trust that the information you aggregate is current and accurate. That’s a challenge if you’re pulling data from numerous platforms (email data, social media data, payment processor data, online fundraising data), where it’s vulnerable to errors and missed fundraising opportunities.

To get stakeholders onboard with a CRM investment, you want to show that it’s going to do more than just consolidate your data in a new software. It’ll impact everything from donor loyalty to data management, engagement to staff retention.

Equipped with those kind of visible metrics, your supporters and backers are much more likely to get excited about you investing in this tool.

3. Higher productivity and efficiency

Having all your major everyday activities in one place makes for easier workflow, better collaboration between team members, better project management, and a simpler way to track resources and costs.

With a CRM, task automation removes tedious tasks so your team can focus on more challenging work.

As mentioned earlier, dashboards and metrics can help you see the bigger picture of your mission and optimize several business processes.

4. Access your info from just about anywhere

Supporting your staff, regardless if they’re fully remote, in the office or a mix of both, will be critical to the success of your nonprofit in a post-pandemic world. CRM products and features will give your team the ability to connect, share ideas and get more done together, regardless of where they are.

Find the rest of this article here.

Looking for CRM support in 2022? Get in touch with our team to learn more about cloudStack’s services and our trio of products: fundraisingManager, receiptManager and financeManager.

All built on the Salesforce platform.

Nonprofits have plenty on their plates to take care of.

Planning fundraising events, marketing work, managing supporters, launching campaigns, processing donation receipts, and working with board members. You have many hats to wear, right?

And as if that isn’t enough, the burden of the pandemic has been forcing mission-driven organizations to think creatively of new ways to engage and serve their constituents.

To say it can be time consuming, inefficient and downright messy without the right tools is a huge understatement.

7 questions for your nonprofit team to ask when choosing a CRM

Your nonprofit is unique. So, the best CRM should include the features, support and integrations that meet your specific needs. After all, the last thing you want to do is get stuck with software that doesn’t make sense for you.

So our team banded together to think through the questions we WISH nonprofits would ask consider as a team BEFORE scheduling a demo with a CRM provider.

1. What do we want to get out of a CRM implementation? To reach your maximum CRM potential, it’s best to have a CRM strategy. It should include setting challenging objectives that can have a lasting impact on your organization. For example, do you want to increase donor retention by 40% over the next two years? Surpass your 2021 fundraising goals by $100,000? Or configure reports so that you can build a case to apply for a large grant?
2. How much data do we have? The number of constituent profiles a nonprofit can collect varies. Be sure to analyze how much donor data you have before buying.
3. What do we need to track? Everything you track should be used to make your nonprofit more successful. To do that, think about the major data you need to capture to get a holistic view of your organization’s performance to boost your revenue.
4. Is our entire team onboard? A CRM will likely affect most of your employee’s jobs in some way. Talk to your team to get them onboard and see what they’re hoping to achieve from the new software. When you’re all on the same page, implementing the CRM and team training will run more smoothly.
5. Can our CRM “talk” to other systems? It’s smart to integrate your CRM tools with any existing applications that you’re using. By removing the back and forth between apps, you can better your productivity and workflow. Though many organizations find it beneficial to use third-party applications, many CRMs offer native automation tools that will centralize all of your data and save you money in the long run.
6. How fast can we get a CRM up and running? If you’re using an existing CRM, it depends on how much data you need to transfer to a new system, who needs access to your CRM, how big your team is, and how sophisticated you want your CRM automation to be. If you’re starting from scratch, setup can happen quickly. If you find it daunting or don’t have the time, consider the services of a CRM software partner like cloudStack Services.
7. Can we afford this? This is the first question or roadblock nonprofits face as budget is almost always a driving factor in any decision. When reviewing costs, think about both immediate and ongoing costs, like integrations, licensing and system maintenance, and training, to name a few. Then there’s the greatest cost benefit of all: reducing manual tasks so your highly-skilled team can focus on more complex, productive work.

Find the rest of this article here.

Wishing you had someone to hold your hand through this journey? Our team would love to connect, give us a shout!

Feeling shy? Instead find us on LinkedIn where we post regularly on nonprofit tech and provide suggestions on how best to succeed with your nonprofit CRM.