In terms of obligations and uses, non-profit organizations and profit organizations are not the same in many ways. But for their success, both versions have the need for a similar core value. Owing to this, non-profit businesses take the assistance of Salesforce as a CRM Solution for their functionality.
Usually, the budget of such organizations is not too high, and thus they need the help of a system that is both affordable and useful. In this concern, Salesforce is a huge boon, for a variety of reasons and features. This article will help narrow down the most crucial ones, but first, it is important to know what it is.
What is Salesforce?
In the matter of creating a connection between the customer and the company, a suitable management solution is very crucial. Salesforce is an integrated cloud-based CRM platform that provides a single view of customer satisfaction to users. This is done by focusing on a variety of important portions, including commerce, marketing, sales, and IT service.
To be specific, it is not a particular software to boost sales processes. It is instead a platform through which different departments monitor customer’s interest and further satisfaction. This particular management solution for better customer relationships has functional concepts and no coding. Not to mention, it is very easy to learn and utilize, and thus, non-profit organizations find it highly useful.
There are a variety of reasons why they are a good choice and these are as follows.
Ensurers an organized structure
One of the most profitable points of Salesforce for nonprofits is the organizational assistance that it provides. Using the built-in functionality, one can customize their company module and workplace structure to meet everyone’s needs. Specifically, the feature of the Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud provides this benefit, and you can make personalized or team-based dashboards.
It also allows a nonprofit company to identify and then make categories of clients and leads, and manage donors. Of course, this has a huge effect on boosting the job enthusiasm of the working staff too, and that improves job performance. The CRM structure and the company profits grow simultaneously and are mutually related; and statistics show huge growth in many departments.
A helpful application under the Salesforce system is the Nonprofit Success Pack or Salesforce NPSP. And this open-source constituent and donor management feature is highly helpful for most nonprofit companies for its customization benefits. On using the service, employees can make the donor access and constituent journey personalized as well.
It enables you get in touch with related contributors and users globally and that way, you can check out other solutions. Furthermore, you can focus more on the mission statement of your business by easily connecting with volunteers and those seeking donations. Indeed, Salesforce NPSP is highly useful for better community and constituent connection, and the app is free to certified nonprofits.
Affordable programs
Salesforce is great for affordability as well, as it provides quite a high number of discounts. Due to the low-budget nature of nonprofits, money is a concern for them, and spending a lot on CRM is taxing. On this note, Salesforce assures affordable products and programs and that helps with the profit margin to a high extent.
In fact, almost 32,000 such organizations around the globe have used it and are reaping the benefits accordingly. A major helpful feature that is the main reason behind this is the program named The Power of Us. To specify, this program is responsible for giving the qualified organizations who use it around 10 subscriptions each.
Plus, there are many services and pre-existing subscriptions that one usually has to pay a notable sum for. In this scenario, this program gives out discounts as well, and that is highly profitable for low-budget organizations like nonprofits. In fact, another exciting aspect of this is that subscribers receive a 30-day free term of service. They have to pay the fee after the period, but until then, all the features are accessible for them.
Provided support
Another profitable feature that Salesforce promises is a partner program, and this creates a constant connection between support staff and users. While performing the tasks that are assigned, you may have difficulty understanding certain functionality of layouts. But Salesforce helps with that situation by providing you with pre-checked solutions by other partners.
The ones that they may have already solved are automatically saved in the backlogs. Thereafter, when you are struggling with understanding some concepts or are facing technical difficulties, you can access this backlog easily. Consequently, you can find the problem area and the corrected answers, and utilize it as per your requirement.
Mobile access with cloud-based infrastructure
Another influential help of using this service is that one can access it from anywhere. Specifically for nonprofit organizations, some do not have a high number of IT staff or equipment. Plus, some co-workers are always on the road and cannot access a full office system at all times.
Thus, in such a situation, having a software that enables you to access the programs from devices like mobile phones is helpful. Salesforce for nonprofits is useful in such a way as it is entirely cloud-based, and is accessible through multiple devices. For security or other reasons, you can limit the number of people who can access it as well. Not to mention, companies with this software get free updates every year, at least three times each.
Flexible workforce
A huge help in the matter of managing a company and its functions is to monitor the workflow. Therefore, with the help of Salesforce, one can easily do so as it comes with workflow automation support. The process is easy to handle and you can perform a lot of necessary tasks without much fuss.
To put it simply, you can do many of the basic functions like sending emails during large donations and much more. When your volunteer manager needs weekly summaries of the activities of all volunteers, they receive said information easily. Plus, when you need to assign followup tasks to the development officers, Salesforce allows that as well. Indeed, there are a lot of important activities that take place in a nonprofit, and this system improves the speed.
Secure connection
In terms of security as well, Salesforce is a huge boost. As the head of any non-profit or other company, you need to stay aware of who has access to your information. Not every employee or related staff should notice data like donation-related information as it is private. Consequently, the flexible and robust sharing and security features of this CRM platform ensure protection and one-person control.
Thus, you can decide who can access said information, and safeguard company data. Plus, you can control who can perform specific company functions too, like updating the program data.
Analytics and reporting are strong
In the question of monitoring the work history of your company, having a suitable Analytics and reporting program is crucial. Luckily, Salesforce comes with this in a comprehensive format of better data control. A lot of the information regarding your firm’s functions are stored, and you can access it easily.
Using this, you can learn information regarding the donors. You can find out who the top donors are each year and overall, and improve your relationship accordingly. The same goes for those who are not providing donations any longer. Plus, gaining information regarding the constituents is easy as well; like who are participating in which programs. Not to mention, which programs are more popular, and have the best correlation with the constituents.
Remove Data silos
A huge part of the infrastructure of any organization is how unified the management services are. With the help of Salesforce for nonprofits, you get all these data that you need, integrated into one system. This is especially helpful and makes it easier for the IT staff to organize the tasks. One such task that is especially important in this condition is removing the data silos from the system. Indeed, with the help of this CRM platform type, one can do so by tracking programs and then managing them. Similarly, one can do the same with monitoring operations, outcomes, clients, and fund-raising in a single platform. This helps to reduce the workload of a company tremendously.
Point-and-click tools
Using this platform, you can gain access to many point-and-click tools as well, for faster and easier fittings. These tools allow the staff to understand how to create layouts and tweak the data, manage permissions, etc. Plus, workers can focus on maintaining security features as well and customize new reports. Overall, they can perform such functions with a simple one-click policy, and not have to ask for outside help.
Integration capability
Without a doubt, a huge driving force behind every nonprofit organization are their fundraising efforts. And because of that, it is important for them to have the ability of seeking and vetting potential donors. With the help of the wealth-screening properties of Salesforce, this is possible.
There is an influential app exchange feature in this platform that allows for better organizational growth. One example of this is the management for donors, which one can use to find and verify contributors.
Third-party tools
In the question of using the best software and tools for creating and managing a system, the cost is high. For most nonprofits, this is an unmanageable expense, and third-party tools prove very valuable instead. Indeed, with the help of the Salesforce AppExchange feature, you can get customized tools at discounted rates or for free.
Under the list of available tools, you would find both nonprofit-specific and general tools. In the case of the former, the option includes apps for managing auctions, low-priced housing programs, track volunteers and case management, etc. And the latter group of apps covers tools for event management, email marketing, and even online donation.
All in all, the Salesforce platform does have a host of valuable uses and each enhances the system of the company. When you are running a nonprofit, it is not possible to constantly worry about how to run the background functions. Hereby, utilizing a platform like Salesforce would reduce your stress level regarding management, cost, and much more.