The client is a Swiss nonprofit that raises funds to help respond to natural disasters and conflicts.
The Challenge
The client is a Swiss nonprofit organization engaged in fundraising for charitable purposes. In collaboration with other Swiss organisations, the group mounts nationwide outreach campaigns and collects donations in response to natural disasters and conflicts and assists children and vulnerable populations in Switzerland. Over time, the organization developed multiple databases with disparate, incomplete donation records – these records offered no unified view for each contact, and no rolled up overview for various fund-raising campaigns. Some donations had to be recorded manually, and other contributions were not tracked at all. Furthermore, the assortment of separate databases was incompatible with new regulations in Switzerland.
The client realized it needed a scalable single source of truth for all their donation data, with accounting functionality seamlessly integrated into a new system. Such a solution would generate personalized communications to donors at just the right time, along with the best donation channel and payment method. In addition, the updated system needed to offer intelligent analysis of historical donation data, as well as ongoing monitoring to understand and flag donation-related behaviors. The goal was to implement a future-proof, scalable solution that connected the organization’s different departments, while optimizing donor insights and real-time communication to increase donation frequency and amount.
The Solution
Based on our assessment of the client’s needs and goals, Persistent recommended a cloud solution based on Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP), Sales Cloud, and Marketing Cloud. NPSP organizes constituent, fundraising, and program data for nonprofits, empowering them to accelerate fundraising. With NPSP, nonprofits can practice effective constituent relationship management, i.e., connect with volunteers, donors, and clients through a single integrated interface. In addition, NPSP offers more than 70 industry reports and dashboards that would allow the client to visualize rolled-up data in simple graphical displays, quickly grasping real-time campaign performance. NPSP also help nonprofits manage recurring donations from committed supporters, and better forecast revenue.
On approval, Persistent implemented NPSP Cloud and Sales Cloud to organize the account and contact data of the client’s donors and partners. Our development team migrated and de-duplicated donation data from multiple databases, enabling more accurate reporting and analysis. We created customized page layouts in Salesforce CRM for faster and better user adoption, and set up Salesforce Marketing Cloud to enable automated cross-channel journeys (e.g., welcome journey, events, newsletters, etc.) Finally, we automated many formerly manual tasks, such as donation allocation and contribution confirmations, and we provided continuous support to the client throughout the integration of new functionalities and automations.
The Outcome
Apart from the vastly greater scalability and efficiency of the new Salesforce cloud solution, the nonprofit immediately benefitted from deeper and more valuable program insights. For example, the NPSP analytics revealed the importance of small, frequent donors who are now being tracked and serviced. And in a larger sense, better understanding of donation behaviour is driving more effective campaigns and events.
In addition, the automation of previously manual processes is saving time and money, while ensuring greater accuracy of all monetary contributions or grants. In short, the Persistent / Salesforce cloud solution is making a powerful, ongoing “contribution” to the client’s fundraising efficiency and results, benefiting people across the country.
Technology Used
- Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP)
- Sales Cloud
- Marketing Cloud
- Talend
