By Rob Leighton, Executive Director at iMission — a full-service digital-first marketing agency working exclusively with nonprofits and social sector organizations.

Successful nonprofit fundraisers have always understood the power of personalization in effective communications. Tailoring messages to resonate with individual donor interests and giving levels fosters stronger connections and inspires greater generosity. Achieving this level of personalization at scale has traditionally been time-consuming and difficult for many organizations.

There’s good news. Salesforce, the world’s leading CRM, is now revolutionizing the non-profit sector with its innovative approach to donor management. By combining the power of its CRM with integrated data and cutting-edge artificial intelligence, Salesforce empowers nonprofit organizations of all sizes to cultivate deeper relationships with donors through hyper-personalized engagement.

How Salesforce is Powering Personal Giving

  • Integrated Data: Salesforce provides a unified view of each donor, consolidating information from various sources, including giving history, website and text messaging interactions, event attendance, advocacy actions, and email engagement. This detailed view enables fundraisers to understand donor preferences and tailor their outreach accordingly.
  • AI-Powered Insights: Salesforce’s Einstein AI analyzes donor data to predict future giving potential, identify major gift prospects, and recommend personalized engagement strategies. This allows nonprofits to optimize their fundraising efforts and focus on cultivating the most promising relationships.
  • Automated Personalization: Salesforce automates personalized communications across multiple channels, including email, social media, and direct mail. This ensures donors receive timely, relevant messages that resonate with their interests – increasing engagement and driving repeat donations.

Salesforce is the great equalizer. Whether you’re a small grassroots organization or a large national institution, Salesforce offers solutions tailored to your individual needs and budget. And, since your organization’s fundraising objectives are likely to increase over time, Salesforce has designed its flexible platform to grow with you – ensuring that you always have the tools you need to achieve your fundraising goals. No matter where you are on your Salesforce journey – if you’re new to the platform, or if you want to use it better – now is the time to harness the power of personalized giving.

Tips to Get Started with Salesforce

  • Identify pain points in your current fundraising and donor management activities: Examples include duplicate data, difficulty in generating fundraising reports, and spreadsheets used as system work-arounds. Then, explore how Salesforce addresses these challenges.
  • Get your data ready: This might mean a data clean-up before it’s imported, but don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.  You’ll want to get started with some speed.  One tip is migrating over the most important subset of data –  like the last 3-5 years of giving history.  Later, you can migrate the less critical data.
  • Start with the basics: Begin by implementing core Salesforce Nonprofit features, such as moves management, donation tracking, streamed gift entry and reporting.
  • Integrate with existing systems: Connect Salesforce with your website, email marketing platform, event management, volunteer management, and other essential applications to streamline data flow.
  • Embrace automation: Leverage Salesforce’s automation capabilities to save time and improve efficiency.
  • Take advantage of Salesforce’s training opportunities There are so many amazing training tools and resources out there that you can — and should — take advantage of to become fully fluent in Salesforce.

Ready to take your fundraising to the next level? Learn more about how to use the world’s best tech to power your nonprofit. Get started!

Tips to Step Up Your Salesforce Game

  • Supercharge Segmentation with Advanced Analytics: Go beyond basic demographics: You’re likely already segmenting by basic factors like donation amount or location. Dive deeper! Use Salesforce reports and dashboards to analyze giving patterns, engagement with email campaigns, website interactions, and event attendance.
  • Create dynamic segments: Don’t just set static lists. Use criteria-based segmentation to automatically update lists as donors act. This ensures your communications are always targeted to the right audience at the right time.
  • Unleash the power of Einstein AI: Predictive scoring with Einstein can analyze your data to predict which donors are most likely to give again, upgrade their donation, or attend an event. This lets you prioritize your outreach efforts for maximum impact.
  • Employ next-best actions: Get AI-powered recommendations on the most effective engagement strategy for each donor. This could be suggesting a personalized email, a phone call, or inviting them to a specific event.
  • Elevate Your Email Marketing: Use Salesforce data to personalize email content based on past giving, interests, and engagement history. Go beyond “Dear [Name]” and tailor messaging to resonate with individual donors.
  • Automate journeys: Create automated email sequences triggered by donor actions, such as welcome series for new donors, re-engagement campaigns for lapsed donors, or thank-you messages with impact reports.
  • Map the donor lifecycle: Visualize the stages donors go through from initial awareness to becoming loyal supporters. Identify potential bottlenecks or areas to improve your engagement strategy.
  • Personalize online experiences: Integrate Salesforce with your website to personalize content, donation forms, and calls to action based on donor profiles.

iMission: Salesforce Consultants for Fundraisers

With expertise in and a focus on the nonprofit sector, iMission fundraising consultants provide invaluable guidance and support throughout your Salesforce journey. We can help you:

  • Develop a customized Salesforce strategy: Tailoring the platform to meet your specific fundraising goals and objectives.
  • Implement and configure Salesforce: Ensuring seamless integration with your existing systems and workflows.
  • Provide ongoing training and support: Empowering your team to effectively utilize Salesforce’s features.
  • Stay up-to-date on the latest innovations: Keeping pace with Salesforce’s rapidly evolving technology and ensuring you’re maximizing its potential.

With a commitment to innovation and a focus on personalized donor engagement, Salesforce is the ideal solution for nonprofits seeking to thrive in the next generation of fundraising. So make sure you’re on board. Partner with an iMission consultant today and your fundraising team will be able to unlock the full power of the Salesforce platform and transform your fundraising efforts.

About the Sponsor

iMission is a full-service digital-first marketing agency working exclusively with nonprofits, public sector organizations, and schools. We are unique in our scope and ability to blend and integrate digital marketing, web development, platforms, and applications to deliver robust solutions for our nonprofit clients. We are intent on addressing immediate challenges and opportunities while we build a flexible foundation needed to keep pace with the evolution of technology.