Like any business, running a nonprofit is a constant exercise in efficiency. In order to keep everything running smoothly from day to day, you need to be able to easily track all of your transactions, as well as easily keep up with employee timesheets and other operational data. The unique challenge for nonprofits comes from the fact that almost all of your transactions will be donations. Unlike businesses, which simply buy and sell products on a regular basis, nonprofits need to be able to track donors, their contact information and their donation amounts. This is a lot of extra data to track, which is why non profit organization software must be able to track everything while also being easy to use.
Salesforce meets this challenge, offering a non-profit success pack designed specifically to easily import and optimize your data in order to show you everything you need to know. Effectively using Salesforce can make running a nonprofit much smoother and help you focus on finding new donors.
How to Import Data Into Salesforce More Effectively
Importing nonprofit data into Salesforce can be a daunting task for the uninitiated. The key to streamlining this process is to organize your data before importing it. Organizing your data into four distinct files instead of one allows you to more easily find and remove bad data. In order to maximize your importing efficiency, organize your incoming data into four files:
- Organization Accounts With Donations
- Organization Accounts Without Donations
- Household Accounts With Donations
- Household Accounts Without Donations.
Some might think that importing your data in this way creates more work for you, but this is only true in the short term. Dumping all of your imported data into one big file might feel satisfying in the moment, but going back and digging through the haystack to find that one piece of data you need will be a lot more challenging. Taking the time to organize your imports up front will make the day-to-day data usage a lot smoother.
How To Optimize Using Salesforce For Nonprofits
Importing and reorganizing data into Salesforce is only the first step to optimizing your nonprofit using Salesforce. Using Luminate salesforce integration gives you access to tools designed specifically for large, multifaceted nonprofits. Like Salesforce, this system is cloud-based and works perfectly within the Salesforce software ecosystem. Using Luminate in conjunction with Salesforce allows you to:
- Create custom constituent profiles
- Classify constituents based on involvement
- Streamline task management
A key aspect of this software is its capacity for custom configuration. The amount of flexibility it offers allows you to figure out which organization and data collection methods work for you.
If you run a large nonprofit with a formidable network of donors and clients, organizing your data can play a huge role in building your company up even more. Streamlining data input and organization can make it easier to contact donors, track donations and generally improve the vitality of your nonprofit. Consider switching to Salesforce in order to take advantage of the customization, flexibility, effective organizing tools and reliability that Salesforce offers.