Patrick Shaw’s Weblog

We’ve been helping nonprofits implement Salesforce for more than a year now - and I continue to be thrilled at the power of the tool and how it can help nonprofits better reach their goals.

I’m also continually learning how the power of Salesforce also represents a fundamental shift for many agencies - from having a tool that was useful for reporting, to a tool that gets used everyday to further your goals.

Here’s where we’re finding that Salesforce can be very different than other tools already in play:

Every contact in your database represents an opportunity for deeper participation, whether that means volunteering, donating, or participating in events. Better still - once a contact has actually participated - your agency should immediately consider them a new opportunity for a deeper relationship.

I know that when I was raising money for a living, our tools didn’t let us do that. Oh, I knew how much we’d earned from our Holiday appeal letter - but the tools we were using didn’t let me look at EACH INDIVIDUAL GIVER and consider how likely it was that they would support our mission again this year. Salesforce lets you do that.

Even better - it creates an accurate pipeline report, based on the criteria you decide. For instance - if I gave last year, but haven’t been asked this year - well - it’ s not very likely you’ll get a gift from me. But if you’ve sent me snail mail, an email, invited me to coffee or an event and so on - then you can reasonably expect that I’m engaged - so the likelihood of getting that gift from me goes up accordingly.

What this really means is that you can have a plan for every person you expect to support you - and you track that in Salesforce. Salesforce won’t do the hard work, mind you - you still have to make that call, send that letter, create that individual plan. And it won’t do the data entry either - you’ll have to make a note that you me with me and asked for a gift, too!

When I was fundraising for a living - I dreamed about a tool that would let me do this - and Salesforce just might be the tool that lets you head in this active direction. It isn’t perfect, and it isn’t right for all - but it is working for many.