Successful Oracle Integration Gives Schwab Charitable 100 Percent Visibility into the Full Lifecycle of its Donor Program

Challenge

• Schwab Charitable, a public charity established to increase giving in the United States, needed a tool to help its service and development teams better manage prospective donors, their advisors, and close the loop with those that became current donors
• The nonprofit had no CRM system in place, and little budget
• Once a prospective donor converted to an active account, it was impossible to see any prospect history for that individual
• Because the sales team travels extensively, the chosen CRM solution had to be accessible from any place at any time

Solution

• After conducting a live demo, the non-profit selected Salesforce CRM for its customizability, licensing structure, and Web-based platform; it initially implemented Salesforce CRM Group Edition, then subsequently upgraded to Salesforce CRM Enterprise Edition for its integration capabilities
• Integration with its Oracle database provides service and sales staff with access to the account at each point in the lifecycle—all from one place; batch synchronizations are done twice daily
• Salesforce CRM illuminates donors' data, enabling users to run reports off transactional balances
• Built-in alerts inform the director when anyone enters an opportunity in excess of $1 million
• By downloading Vettro RainMaker from AppExchange, sales staff can create, access, update, and act upon information directly from their wireless RIM BlackBerries
• Customized screen details and tab names align Salesforce CRM with Schwab Charitable's business functions
• Future plans to incorporate escalations into custom fields created for compliments and complaints will further weave customer service into the system
• A knowledgebase built into Salesforce CRM provides internal users with helpful solutions for serving their existing donors, advisors, and prospects quickly

Results

• Access to the full lifecycle of the donor process gives Schwab Charitable a clearer picture of what it takes to attract and retain donors
• Schwab Charitable's service team can now manage the donor process from one place, creating a more streamlined, efficient system
• Visibility into donors' transactional data and robust pipeline information allows Schwab Charitable to run reports for accurate forecasting and planning
• Wireless access to Salesforce CRM equip the sales team with the agility of anytime, anywhere access