The aftermath of Hurricane Harvey exemplifies how fragile our life on this planet really is. The consequences of Harvey will be felt for years to come as people cope with the path of destruction that Harvey left in its wake.
Nonprofit organizations in the middle of the aftermath are scrambling to keep it all glued together. That includes managing a myriad of records, handling donations, and scheduling and tracking volunteers and temporary workers. It’s crushing, exhausting work.
Nonprofits are using CRM to lower stress levels
Salesforce has been offering time-saving online tools for busy nonprofit professionals since 1999 and provides ten free user accounts to any tax-exempt organization that applies for them. Salesforce is the engine that drives tens of thousands of nonprofits in their daily journey to sift through and make sense of data.
Salesforce.org is the philanthropic wing of the company and has been raising awareness of the organizations that are providing relief to affected persons, so many of whom are displaced and now homeless. The company is matching employee giving to qualified organizations supporting the relief efforts. If you don’t already support an organization involved in these efforts, the American Red Cross is a great choice among well-respected organizations out in the field helping every day, giving people hope, meals, shelter, and other assistance.
Salesforce is completely online and streamlines the management of data. We are now living within a culture of data. Nonprofits must compete for support dollars. Donor retention is a challenge as attention spans grow shorter and the list of causes grows longer. As of 2016, there were 1,571,056 tax-exempt organizations (source: NCCS Business Master File 4/2016).
Philanthropy innovators are growing their donor base using techniques borrowed from the consumer products industries, which is a term called social selling. Social selling is developing personal relationships within the sales process. For nonprofits, the sale is the pledge of a donation.
Ditching paper and destroying challenges
Salesforce keeps data tidy for many nonprofits. Those who use paper systems, Excel sheets with donor information, and other dated processes, are rapidly finding it hard to keep up with their daily administrative demands and at the same time supporting what needs to be done. Harvey has layered in some very stressful, unique challenges to the volunteers in the field. Many of these helpers are staying looped in with mobile phones and solar chargers in areas where power has been snuffed out.
The American Red Cross has stayed connected to their teams and supporters by using Salesforce. With all of the data stored securely in the cloud, Salesforce records are not vulnerable to loss when a phone is dropped in water or a laptop is damaged by a power surge. Many of the organizations helping after Harvey are also using Salesforce to manage outreach and remove silos; providing transformational help to those in need.
With Salesforce for nonprofits, teams can manage calendars, volunteer information, and schedules, track affiliations and relationships, collaborate with each other and external partners, and track important milestones with reports and dashboards.
LinkedIn Learning connects nonprofits to Salesforce education
In partnership with LinkedIn Learning, I have released the course Nonprofit Customer Relationship Management with Salesforce that explains how nonprofits use Salesforce to meet important daily needs and leverage data.
Hurricane Harvey is a stark reminder to nonprofit leaders of the importance of having information organized and at the ready so that precious resources can be expertly managed and rapidly deployed when a disaster strikes. The American Red Cross and thousands of other Harvey helpers know well the value that Salesforce brings to the table.