Anyone who has worked with one before will know that charities are very busy places. Ongoing operational, project and outreach activities are vital to the success of charitable organisations and it is important that these are managed correctly, securely and easily.
Still using spreadsheets?
Spreadsheets are an amazing tool and can be very useful when it comes to storing and analysing data. This being said, as your organisation scales your spreadsheets will become harder and harder to use and manage. If you are still using spreadsheets as part of your processes, it is definitely a good time to start looking into a well design database solution for nonprofits.
Salesforce CRM Features that will revitalise your charity
Salesforce CRM is a leading database that is used by thousands of charities worldwide. The following features make Salesforce a no-brainer when it comes to picking your next CRM solution:
Centralised Donations
Charities collect donations from multiple channels. This includes donations made via Paypal, crowd fundraisers like GoFundMe, bank transfers, direct debits, cash payments and postal cheques. This data is scattered across several different channels and many charities do not have a centralised location where all of these donations can be seen and analysed.
CRM systems comes into play here by allowing a 360 view of all these donations. Salesforce NPSP has an open API meaning that these these donations can be automatically added to the database. They can also be easily entered manually using ‘Gift entry’ or ‘NPSP Data Importer’ features.
Contact Management
Charities work with a range of different contacts. This includes:
- Supporters
- Donors
- Members
- Stakeholders
- Volunteers
A CRM system like Salesforce allows charities to have one place with all the details of these contacts.
Fundraising and programmes
A charity will run multiple fundraising campaigns and programmes throughout the year. A CRM system will allow the ability to budget, store and analyse these events. This data can easily be used in AGMs and yearly reports and fundraisers can use this information to improve future programmes.
Activity Tracking
Charity staff members run through many tasks and activities on a daily basis. A CRM system will help staff members stay on top of calls, tasks, emails and other interactions. Salesforce Chatter is a communication tool built into the platform and Salesforce Activity allows tasks, calls and emails to be linked against database records.
Reporting & Analytics
Having thousands of records of data can only be useful if you are able to easily analyse it in a visual format. In Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud you get out of the box reports and dashboards that you can use to easily analyse your data. You can also build custom reports and dashboards and run and/or export them when needed.
Accounting & Ledger
Being able to reconcile between donations and your banking software is a cumbersome tasks for many charities. With Salesforce Accounting Subledger, you are able to easily connect fundraising with finance.
