Data’s Role in Guiding Your Nonprofit’s Programs

An important key to effective nonprofit program management is making the most of your data. This blog takes a look at how one nonprofit used Salesforce to leverage their data and reinvent their program.

When working with nonprofits, one of the things we can always count on is they know their goal. Whether it’s to feed the poor, support the arts or provide educational opportunities for those in need, the goal, the mission is always there. Reaching the goal as effectively and efficiently as possible can be a challenge. Some nonprofits have this down pat. Others need some help. We’ve seen both cases and, overwhelmingly, the difference is data that drives efficient and effective management of non-profit programs.

The key to effective program management is harnessing the power of your data

Let’s talk about data. How it’s handled is a key differentiator for many nonprofits. Research from Saleforce’s 2018 Nonprofit Trends Report shows that 53% of nonprofit leadership found collecting program data easy. However, only 47% said analyzing the data was easy. Forty-six percent felt they could track the effectiveness of their programs.

Redpath client Little Free Library was one of these nonprofits. The organization — dedicated to building literacy-friendly neighborhoods through mailbox-sized libraries — had been a Salesforce customer for years. However, while Little Free Library had been able to use Salesforce to track its donations, the nonprofit had thus far been unable to utilize the rest of its data to manage its contributions and its libraries.

Something had to change.

Harnessing the power locked in those little free libraries

We often find that data confusion problems can be tied to a single culprit. For Little Free Library it was a Google Maps solution that had reached its data point limit. The nonprofit was also struggling with a clunky interface that hindered user ability to filter when searching for the nearest libraries. The nonprofit had outgrown its current solution and it was hindering their program management.

Fortunately, Salesforce is full of solutions for just such a problem and we were fortunate enough to help this worthy nonprofit access the power of their data. Together we created a data model with custom objects that allowed Little Free Library to track the stewards of its libraries, as well as the libraries themselves and their charters. We also built Little Free Library a visualforce page to display their libraries and contact information. This all integrated natively with Google Maps using that incredibly important real-time Salesforce data. We also made it easier for those all-important library stewards to update their library information and process new requests in Salesforce by using FormAssembly.

Finally, we implemented Soapbox Engage to manage their donations and MapAnything to geocode their libraries. This allowed the location coordinates to translate to the visualforce page.

Making the most of their program management

A nonprofit’s data is more than just a tool to legitimize funding. It’s the key to improving operations as a whole. Since redefining their Salesforce strategy, Little Free Library has saved at least 40 hours per week approving new libraries, and they can process up to 400 library requests per week with one person. More importantly, they’ve improved the service they provide to their communities, and that is the true power of effective data usage.

Better use of data leads to effective and efficient achievement of mission which leads to better outcomes for all.

To learn more about Little Free Library’s success and how other nonprofits have optimized their Salesforce solution, download our whitepaper Nonprofits in the Cloud today