The Future of Connected Fundraising

This blog was written in collaboration with Saiba Singh, Product Marketing Manager, Partnerships and Integrations, of Classy’s Product Marketing team. 

As the industry evolves and the digital landscape continues to fragment, it’s becoming more challenging for nonprofits to reach supporters. With a 1.7% decrease in donations and a 10% decrease in donors year over year, it’s clear that personalized, intentional giving experiences matter more than ever.  

Leveraging the right technology mobilizes connection and helps elevate your unique mission through impactful storytelling. Additionally, with access to clean, comprehensive data, you receive a full picture of each supporter and discover better ways to strengthen those relationships at scale.

Over the last decade-plus, Classy’s product focus has been on creating meaningful connections through giving and empowering nonprofits to take advantage of every opportunity to interact deeply with donors. 

To meet the nuanced needs of the nonprofit sector, today’s fundraising platforms must deliver best-in-class technology to support organizations in the ways they deserve. From native marketing integrations to long-standing CRM partnerships, and collaboration with modern analytics tools, leveraging the right tech stack means you can count on intentional, purpose-built offerings that grow and scale as you do. 

Today, we’re sharing what we know at Classy to be the most critical elements of connected fundraising, and how our product is evolving to remain in lockstep with the needs of the sector. 

What is “connected fundraising” and why does it matter?  

When Classy builds an integration, we understand that your organization’s front-end and back-end experiences must work together. At the same time, we ensure our and our partners’ solutions remain within our respective areas of expertise. 

Solutions that go too wide often stray from their core competency, lacking long-term product innovation with outdated user interfaces for donors and staff. This is why we routinely see customers migrating away from all-in-one solutions, instead opting for integrated solutions that deliver a comprehensive and thoughtful experience for every stakeholder.

Classy’s high pace of innovation, coupled with robust CRM, analytics, and marketing integrations, ensure you can leverage your data as a strategic asset now and in the future, all while keeping it accessible and centralized within the context of your tech stack.

Connected fundraising experiences allow you to facilitate unified donor journeys and personalize them to reflect the needs and interests of each individual. Getting the right data from the right touchpoints helps you achieve a fundamental understanding of how donors engage with you, opening the door for your team to turn that moment of generosity into a lifelong relationship. 

Elevate your impact with connected technology

According to Classy’s 2023 State of Modern Philanthropy report, supporters who engage with multiple campaign types (like crowdfunding, peer-to-peer, and fundraising events) are 4x more valuable than supporters who participate in a single campaign. 

Understanding who those highly engaged supporters are, which channels they prefer, and how to reach them is only possible with connected technology. A set of comprehensive fundraising tools paired with best-of-breed integrations makes it possible to facilitate, organize, and oversee all donor touchpoints without losing anything in the shuffle. 

That 360-degree view aids informed decision-making on how to acquire, convert, and retain your loyal donor base for the long term. 

See it in action with Classy

CRM solutions

Since Classy’s inception, we have integrated with CRMs that empower nonprofits to personalize interactions at scale. Providing a flexible fundraising platform that integrates with diverse solutions provides nonprofits with the most modern, innovative technology to empower impact.

Our long-standing partnership with Salesforce has grown to become the deepest integration in the industry. With integrations to both Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) and Nonprofit Cloud (NPC), we are committed to propelling the sector forward, together. 

Nonprofit organizations across multiple verticals partner with Classy and Salesforce to unify data and deepen supporter relationships with powerful, integrated technology built to scale.

In addition to Salesforce, we partner with Omatic for deep connection into Blackbaud’s Raiser’s Edge NXT. We know many organizations have the need to leverage Classy and RE NXT together, and our partnership with Omatic allows you to integrate Classy’s conversion-driving supporter experience with RE NXT to maximize fundraising strategies. 

For non-native and non-partner-built CRM integrations, you can leverage our Zapier integration to connect to almost any CRM you choose, including Bloomerang, Little Green Light, NeonCRM, and more. This solution allows your organization to send core fundraising data, including transactions, supporters, recurring plans, and campaign data, to the CRM of your choice. 

Analytics & tracking solutions

Beyond CRM, Classy integrates with analytics partners like Google Analytics 4 and Meta Conversions API (Meta CAPI) to power learnings from your supporter traffic. 

Understanding the impact of digital fragmentation on nonprofit fundraising, analytics help unlock new ways of collecting data while respecting your donors’ privacy. 

This data helps determine how supporters want to hear from you and the multiple places they may be engaging with your cause, allowing for more informed communication. Leveraging data from analytics integrations also helps power ad personalization, optimization, and measurement so you can extract the right touchpoints to deliver compelling supporter experiences. 

Marketing solutions

Delivering engaging, stand-out storytelling does not stop at CRM and analytics capabilities. With native marketing integrations like Mailchimp and Constant Contact, and strong partner-built solutions like Klaviyo, you can segment donors by cohorts to send personalized, relevant communication that resonates. 

Alongside your analytics and CRM integrations, you learn which stories your supporters connect with the most, and where they are listening. From work-in-progress stories to storytelling with real-life images, you are well-prepared to share your organization’s work from start to finish. 

The future of integrations with Classy and GoFundMe

Together, with our integrated partners, Classy is here to support your end-to-end fundraising experience. With a deep-rooted commitment to industry-leading CRM, analytics, and marketing integrations, your needs will always come first, while also ensuring your supporters receive nothing less than a world-class experience. 

Our goal is to work across vendors to establish deep partner relationships that serve the distinct needs of the nonprofit sector, so you can focus on your mission. Classy and GoFundMe are testing ways for nonprofits to tap into the millions of donors engaging across our platforms so you can make an even greater impact.