Are you frustrated that you can’t get insights from your data? As a leader in your nonprofit, you’ve likely spent a lot of time and money on services to implement Salesforce. Are you getting the key metrics you need or are they still out of reach?
If so, you are not alone! Like many peers, you are likely experiencing a data crisis.
Data is the lifeblood of modern non-profits, and without clear insights from it, you are limiting your reach to your constituents. Charities used to be able to survive on “less than ideal” data in the past, however with our current economic climate, donors are being more selective about who they support.
Do any (or all) of these symptoms sound familiar?
Poor Reporting
We struggle every quarter to provide a detailed report to the Board
We have to export data to Excel where it can be remediated and massaged for reporting
Our data is in multiple systems (often redundantly) and we struggle to get all the data we need
Our data is unusable due to its poor quality
Painful Financial Reconciliation
Salesforce data isn’t properly aligned with our financial system
We spend substantial time reconciling our financial ledger with Salesforce
It takes us weeks or months to distribute tax receipts to our donors
Confusing Communications
We manage a list of constituents separately in MailChimp or a similar marketing/communications tool
We can’t segment our donors for communications without manually adding tags to their record
We are managing opt-outs and opt-ins in multiple places and cannot be confident of our audience's consent
We communicate with donors that have asked not to be contacted
Your data crisis has real, tangible consequences for your nonprofit’s operations. As long as it is unaddressed, you will continue to miss fundraising targets, damage donor relationships, or waste valuable volunteer and employee time on manual efforts.
It is critical to address the underlying causes so that you can start experiencing these benefits:
Improved Donor Stewardship
We can express gratitude to donors more precisely, the right donors at the right times
We are punctual and consistent with our tax receipting so that we are both compliant and trustworthy
Increased Marketing Reach
We can reliably segment with our reliable and rich constituent database
We can appeal to new or lapsed donors with the right messaging
We can promote our mission and target communications to allies and volunteers
Better System Adoption
Our staff trust the data in the system and are able to easily carry out their key functional activities
We are able to entice new talent to join our group because we have a highly operational database on an enterprise class platform
Our staff turnover is lower because the boring parts of their job are now automated and they can focus on high value activities
Faster Donations
Because of increased visibility into our Major Gift and Grants pipelines, we are able to follow up strategically and faster, allowing us to hit our targets
Is there a magic solution that will allow us to solve the challenges above and meet the benefits described? No. Is there an approach that can be followed that will allow us to meet these benefits over a period of time? Yes.
The first step is actually understanding your current situation; where are your gaps and where are your strengths? Understanding exactly where you stand is the first step to fixing the problem. Much like if you were experiencing financial issues, the first step would be to understand where you are actually spending your money. The first step here is to understand where you are spending your time and money on broken and manual processes.
To learn more about how your organization may be faring with its data, click the link above to do a self-audit and receive a free custom report. We will ask you a few questions about your current situation and then use results to provide you with a report that gives you some immediate steps that you can take to take back control of your database!
If your needs are more urgent, Contact Us to discuss our mini-blueprint offering, a quick 8-hour technical assessment of your Salesforce instance, with a detailed report and recommendations of how to move forward.