Making a New Year’s resolution can be a blessing and a curse. Resolution advocates argue that a resolution provides the motivation to accomplish goals more immediately, whereas the naysayers might argue that a person should be creating goals throughout the entire year, instead of only making the choice to change in January. Whatever your stance on resolutions, as a development director, you should make the goal to grow your organization’s donor network in the new year.
Every thriving nonprofit needs to plan for growth, but as your organization adds new programs and services, it’s also essential that you have a donor management system that’s scalable (Scalability refers to the ability of a system to handle an increasing amount of work, and also its potential to accommodate the increased workload).
Keeping all your donor information on a spreadsheet is fine, but the larger your organization, the more complicated it becomes to locate and follow up with existing donors. For example, you may inadvertently forget to thank a donor, or accidentally contact a donor via email when he or she prefers a phone call. As these mistakes happen, your energy becomes directed at decreasing donor drop-off, instead of creating new relationships and cultivating new donors.
Luckily, we’ve discovered that using Salesforce for nonprofits not only helps you retain donors, but it also has the ability to grow with your organization. Unlike other donor management systems that have limits on the number of donors the system can store, Salesforce doesn’t limit the amount of data that can be stored. No matter how large your organization grows, Salesforce can keep up with you.
What also makes Salesforce a stand-out for nonprofits is its customization capabilities. In addition to an app-exchange that allows you to integrate email marketing and other tools, many companies now make extensions that optimize your Salesforce experience (we may be biased, but we love the DonorLynk PowerPack). Customizing Salesforce only adds to its scalability: you’ll be able to keep growing and thriving with a system that supports that growth.
To have a truly successful organization, you should not only prioritize growing your donor network, but also invest in a donor management system that supports that growth. If you have any issues with your current system, or just want to explore all your options, we’d love to help. Get in touch with our team — we’re here to answer your questions.