Salesforce CRM Makes Donor Management More Effective at Goodwill Industries of San Francisco, San Mateo, and Marin Counties

Challenge

• An autonomous not-for-profit social enterprise dedicated to creating solutions to poverty through workforce creation, social action, and environmental stewardship, needed a new CRM system
• Wanted a better way to capture information on donors, shoppers, and program participants for its 17 retail stores, growing online store, and extensive re-use/recycling operation
• Had used E-Tapestry and Raiser’s Edge fundraising solutions, but needed a single relational database to support cross-selling and marketing efforts
• Wanted to develop a complete business intelligence system over time
• Sought to create a custom solution template other Goodwill affiliate organizations could use

Solution

• With assistance from salesforce.com Consulting,  deployed Salesforce CRM in a couple of months to 150 employees throughout the organization
• Centralized donor and customer information in the Sales Cloud, making it easier for Goodwill to cross-sell to customers, material and financial donors, and plan corporate donation drives
• Salesforce CRM also tracks information needed for IRS reporting
• salesforce.com Training & Certification programs got users up to speed quickly and internal training programs showcased custom features
• Custom integration between Goodwill’s Web site and Salesforce CRM enables the automatic creation of new accounts, contacts, and opportunities, and generates response emails, case assignments, and escalations as needed
• Receipts--including a personal note from the data entry interns who are learning how to use Salesforce CRM as part of their job training experience--are automatically sent to donors via email
• Creates and manages campaigns targeting financial and material donors using Salesforce CRM Marketing; VerticalResponse from the AppExchange provides added email and direct mail campaign support
• PostCode Anywhere from the AppExchange improves data quality by providing address validation and automatic capture at time of entry
• Future plans include building fundraising dashboards, creating custom online training programs to increase adoption, and with salesforce.com partner Astadia and the Family Service Agency of San Francisco to extend Salesforce CRM to monitor program outcomes and institutional fundraising initiatives

Results

• Increased the number of donors in its database from 2,000 to 80,353 mailable accounts and more than 40,000 emailable accounts
• Improved information sharing and integration among disparate departments for more coordinated efforts
• Targeted emails increased the frequency of donations; donors are responding to requests for specific items and other requests for engagement
• Program participants trained in data entry and reporting using Salesforce CRM have experienced improved placement rates for employment at other nonprofits