3 Ways to Raise More Money with Classy for Salesforce

With better data collection, reporting, and analysis, nonprofits are making smarter, more data-driven decisions than ever before. When it comes to online fundraising, integrating that data into your CRM can be extremely valuable. That’s why Classy has worked so hard to build and refine our bidirectional integration with Salesforce.

But it’s not enough just to have the data or even to have all donor data in one place; you have to know how to use it. To get a better understanding of what the Classy for Salesforce integration enables nonprofits to do, we spoke with Tim Gumto, the Classy for Salesforce product manager and lead software engineer. When we asked him how organizations should use their connected accounts, his answer was simple: “It depends on the organization’s goals.” Integrating your Classy data into Salesforce allows you to learn a ton about your community and how best to steward them to meet your goals.

Tim shared three ways nonprofit organizations can use Classy for Salesforce to learn about their supporters, raise more money, and cultivate lasting relationships. With access to the right data, you can improve some of the most important elements of your fundraising strategy.

1. Retain and Upgrade Recurring Donors

An important advantage of linking Classy with the Salesforce CRM is that it gives you a complete picture of your donors and helps you identify the next steps in your relationships with them. When it comes to monthly supporters, this means your team is equipped to thank, update, and even upgrade donors.

When someone becomes a monthly donor through a Classy donation page, this information is then synced in Salesforce. From then on, anyone looking at this donor account (sometimes called a “household”) will know they belong to this special group. This can also make for easy segmenting in Salesforce if you use the CRM in conjunction with a marketing or email service. Monthly donors should receive specific communications and appeals that reflect their commitment to the organization.

Syncing recurring donor data in Salesforce can also reduce churn by preventing credit card issues. “You can set workflows to alert your staff when a card is two or three months from expiring, for instance,” said Tim. You can use a similar process to notify your team when the donor has been giving at the same level for a number of months. Use this information to coordinate appeals to upgrade their monthly gift.

Of course, it’s always a good idea to say thank you to these devoted supporters. Create workflows to trigger special or personalized thank-you messages, too.

Read Next: A Nonprofit’s Guide to Recurring Giving

2. Empower Peer-to-Peer Fundraisers and Nurture Their Friends

The Classy for Salesforce integration is also a powerful tool for tracking and encouraging your peer-to-peer fundraisers. Within Classy, you can now create milestone emails to congratulate and thank fundraisers who raise a certain amount. If you want to get even more sophisticated with your email marketing, Salesforce can connect your Classy data with your email provider.

Much like recurring donors, peer-to-peer fundraisers are valuable champions for your organization that you don’t want to lose. When you sync your Classy data into Salesforce, you can then segment past fundraisers for exclusive communications. For example, people who have fundraised in the past are great candidates to recruit for a campaign soft launch. Search for successful peer-to-peer fundraisers in your Salesforce database and ask them to be part of this exclusive first wave of participants.

By linking your Classy and Salesforce accounts, you also simplify the process of nurturing and engaging third-party donors. When someone donates to a friend’s personal fundraising page, they may not be very familiar with your cause and organization. But by syncing your donation data with your CRM, you can create new contacts and implement an email drip campaign to educate them and incite action.

Download the Guide: Anatomy of a Successful Peer-to-Peer Campaign

3. Get More out of Your Events

Just like peer-to-peer fundraising, events are another type of campaign that may generate many new contacts. When you connect Classy with Salesforce, you can create these new contacts or accounts and nurture them accordingly. What’s more, when a family registers for an event or buys more than one ticket, you can collect all the associated names and information for further engagement.

And when you can associate not only donations, but event attendance and other activities with your supporters, you can learn what kind of engagement is most effective for your nonprofit. For instance, with your event registration and donation data all in one place, you might find that people tend to give more frequently or in larger amounts after attending an event or activity. This might encourage your team to increase promotion of these events to upgrade your more casual supporters.

You can also use information about past event registration to segment supporters to receive early-bird offers next year. And if you’re running a registration with fundraising event, you can use past fundraising data to inform the goals you set, both on an individual and campaign level.

Unlock the Power of Donor Data

These are just a few of the ways nonprofits can use the Classy for Salesforce integration to optimize fundraising campaigns, nurture donor relationships, and accelerate progress on their mission. But when you connect the platforms to get a holistic view of your audience, the possibilities are endless.

Tim emphasized that Classy clients use Salesforce in many different ways and that their practices tend to depend on how Salesforce-savvy they are. This learning curve definitely shouldn’t deter you from diving into donor data. Taking the time to get more familiar with the CRM could yield tons of information and insight. In any case, he and the rest of the Classy team are also looking for ways to make the process of consolidating and analyzing data even more intuitive.