5 Useful Salesforce Integrations for Nonprofits
Salesforce is known for integrations with various software tools and the SaaS (Software as a Service) companies have taken notice and made integrations turn-key and hugely beneficial to nonprofit organizations and teams.
The Guiding Force team has set up many integrations, so we listed five useful tools we know your team will love (in no particular order).
The automated Gmail reminder after each sent email to log the message into Salesforce is a huge help!
Company Email
Something we use all day, every day for our team is the Gmail integration with Salesforce. Also available for Outlook, the integration allows you to:
Add new contacts and accounts to Salesforce directly from your email (no more cutting and pasting new contacts and toggling between screens)
Log emails sent and received (including attachments)
Log events if you’re using the activity feature and/or tracking team members’ meetings with donors, clients and partners
Fundraising Software
While there are many integrations available for various fundraising tools, we know Give Lively is a fan favorite for many nonprofits. Due to its cost-effectiveness, robust features, easy-to-navigate tools, positive user interface, and excellent support team, many nonprofits are turning to Give Lively for their donation landing pages, monthly giving programs, events, text campaigns and peer to peer campaigns.
Give Lively has set up a Salesforce integration that will sync your contacts, donations and campaigns. Saving hundreds of hours a year, staff no longer have to upload or enter each individual donation received via Give Lively into their CRM. While the integration is pretty good right “out of the box,” any hiccups can easily be sorted with the tech support team that responds quickly and effectively.
Matching Gifts
Oftentimes nonprofits and donors leave money on the table because we simply forget to ask about matching gifts. Well, the Double the Donation integration solves all of your woes and not only syncs with Salesforce, but it automatically sends reminder emails to donors!
After the donation is entered into Salesforce and synced with Double the Donation’s site, Double the Donation sends the donor two emails letting them know their donation might be eligible for a match. Once the donor initiates a matching gift request, the integration updates the donor’s Salesforce contact record with the company selected for the matching gift. While there’s room for improvement in this integration, the real benefit is the automated emails reminding the donor to ask their employer about a match!
Prospect Research
The vast information available when researching a prospective supporter is nothing short of amazing. I remember being wide-eyed the first time I pulled a prospect profile – not at their capacity to give or personal information – but simply at the amount of information available to help me connect with donors that were potentially able and interested in investing in the cause in a more meaningful way.
With that said, running the spreadsheet through the software then looking up each individual profile was overwhelming and sometimes too much data. Until I found iWave’s Salesforce integration. With iWave, I was not only able to sync my contacts between their system and Salesforce, but I could pull up their profile directly from the contact record, get a snapshot of their profile numbers/data/likelihood, see their overall score, and – my favorite feature – they categorized them by hidden gems and greatest potential.
Also, what must be noted, are the security features that the integration can support to ensure only major gift officers and appropriate-level development staff can see and access the profiles as well as the information on the contact record.
Webinars
What was once an occasional opportunity for patients/clients and supporters to learn more about your mission and programs, is now commonplace for education and connecting with those you serve and who support your important work.
Zoom has a great integration with Salesforce that has many features you just might fall in love with:
Schedule a Zoom meeting when you create or update an event in Salesforce
Start an instant Zoom meeting and automatically create events directly from a Salesforce contact record (great for tracking donor prospect/stewardship meetings)
View reports for Zoom meetings in Salesforce (see who registered, showed, and more without ever leaving Salesforce)
Automatically sync Zoom meeting information to Salesforce (date, time, location, links, etc.)
Sync meetings with your Google calendar
The likely most useful feature of this integration is having your webinar registrants added to Salesforce and tracking if they show to the webinar. To see a snapshot of how often one of your contacts is engaging with your organization in one place brings us back to the “Single Source of Truth” – which is important to understanding your constituents’ interests, needs, behaviors and interactions with your cause.
There are SEVERAL other software providers that have integrations and meet similar needs of the five areas listed above. The ones we choose are simply our favorites, but we encourage all Salesforce users to shop around. Check out reviews, ask your nonprofit industry peers using Salesforce what they’re using and if they like it, ask for product AND integration demos, and don’t be afraid to shop the Salesforce AppExchange for ideas and product options.
If you’re interested in implementing any of these integrations and need support, let’s chat! Our team is available to help you on a project basis to configure one or more integrations.