Blazing a Trail of Fundraising Success

Doing good means more than possessing expertise and hiring the best people. Charities need a consistent flow of money to keep going. Nonprofit groups, especially those that aim to expand their missions and serve more people, must innovate to reach more people, court donors, and show them how their money is being put to work.

By getting staffers from development, IT, and other teams working together regularly, charities can create new methods for staying in touch with donors, measure the impact their gifts are making, and inviting more people to support their organization. And with the help of top-flight tech companies, various nonprofit teams can see data in real time, allowing them to measure how well they are performing at any moment.

Among its 44,000 nonprofit and education customers, Salesforce.org has dubbed the following four as “trailblazers” — nonprofits that are using technology in innovative ways to transform their organizations and further their missions.

• Pencils of Promise has a mission to break down barriers to quality education in developing countries. Their grassroots fundraising origin has created a collaborative fundraising culture where all employees contribute to the effort. Ease of data sharing across the organization plays a crucial role in effective communication, and ultimately, record donations. Read the full story

• ADL (Anti-Defamation League) works to expose hate groups and publicize crimes aimed at Jews in the U.S. and aids other ethnic groups who have been targeted by bigotry. The organization has spent the last two years modernizing their technology with the goal of improving communications. Read the full story

• First Book has distributed 185 million books and other learning materials through a network of 450,000 educators. Their teams traditionally operated in silos until they revamped their data collection and sharing technology to empower employees for faster strategic decision-making. Read the full story

• buildOn works to improve education for disadvantaged children through two tracks: new schools and service-learning opportunities. The organization found success in raising money for building schools, but had difficulty funding their service-learning track. The solution not only required outside-the-box thinking, but increased collaboration across departments and the technology to support it. Read the full story