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Increase Your Impact with Salesforce Data Cloud (CDP): A Guide for Nonprofits

By Soheel Pirbhai

As organizations navigate the increasingly digital landscape, the management of data sources becomes more challenging. On top of that, for nonprofit organizations, the complex regulatory structures governing donor data adds pressure to maintain stringent administration processes and responsible data practices. This can be very challenging.

However, there is a solution that can revolutionize how your charity engages with its supporters: Salesforce Data Cloud (formerly Salesforce CDP).

Salesforce Data Cloud empowers your charity to unify data from various sources into a single individual profile, offering a comprehensive 360-degree view of each supporter across every touchpoint. In this post, we will explore why your charity should leverage Data Cloud (Salesforce CDP) and discover the multitude of benefits it brings to your data management and marketing efforts.

Overcoming Data Challenges in Charities

In today’s digital world, charities face a multitude of data sources to manage – including fundraising CRM, charity websites, retail platforms, volunteer databases, and more. However, analyzing and harnessing insights from these diverse sources can be a daunting task for limited team resources. 

This is where Salesforce Data Cloud comes in. It’s a game-changer in how you view and engage with your supporters. By streamlining the process of consolidating data into individual profiles, it provides a unified perspective that transcends separate platforms within your organization. Moreover, it upholds the foundational principle of maintaining trust in data management.

5 Key Reasons to Use Salesforce Data Cloud

  1. Personalization: By gaining a detailed and accurate view of your donors and supporters, you can personalize your communications and fundraising efforts. This personalized approach leads to higher engagement, increased donations, and stronger supporter relationships.
  2. Segmentation: With Data Cloud, you can segment donors and supporters based on demographics, interests, and donation history from multiple sources. This enables you to create targeted and effective campaigns that resonate with specific supporter groups.
  3. Cross-Channel Marketing: Data Cloud helps you identify and track donors across various channels, enabling you to implement more cohesive and impactful cross-channel marketing campaigns.
  4. Data Governance: Data Cloud ensures compliance with regulatory requirements and data governance policies, safeguarding donor personal data and ensuring responsible data usage. Keep your data protection officer happy and maintain the trust of your supporters.
  5. Analytics: Data Cloud provides charities with a comprehensive and holistic view of their supporters, enabling the discovery of valuable insights and opportunities. Uncover hidden trends, preferences, and behaviors to optimize your marketing strategies and enhance decision-making.
READ MORE: Navigating the CDP Landscape: Data Cloud and Marketing Cloud Personalization

Real-World Examples of CDP in Action

Unifying Retail and Fundraising Data Sources 

Charities often have physical stores where supporters donate items to raise funds. However, the data generated from real-world interactions with shop staff and volunteers is often overlooked in marketing databases, resulting in missed segmentation and analysis opportunities.

By unifying retail data with other marketing sources, organizations can tap into new potential. This integration allows for more precise segments by considering a broader range of touchpoints – including both online and offline interactions, such as in-store engagements. By integrating these touchpoints, organizations gain a holistic view of supporters, enabling the creation of targeted and personalized marketing campaigns.

Furthermore, unifying retail and fundraising data enables enhanced analysis and precise insights. With the complete picture, organizations can identify hidden trends, patterns, and correlations. This data-driven approach empowers decision-making, maximizes the impact of fundraising efforts, and ensures efficient resource allocation.

In the competitive charity sector, harnessing the potential of unified retail and fundraising data provides new marketing opportunities.

eCommerce and Charity Website Data Sync

The charity eCommerce website may be operated as an independent entity within the organization. While the eStore might share branding and major campaign straplines developed by marketing, eCommerce data is not connected with fundraising streams. This means eCommerce order and profile data are not being considered within segmentation, thus giving an inaccurate picture of your actual donors. 

Without incorporating eCommerce data, valuable metrics such as purchase frequency, average order value, or product preferences are not taken into account, leading to incomplete donor profiles.

Data Cloud can ingest all eStore data and use it to unify individuals from different sources, creating segments based on engagement from all touchpoints and income streams.

Maximizing Tax Benefits (with Gift Aid or Tax Rebate Instructions)

Donations to charities offer tax incentives in many countries, including the UK where donors who make a gift aid declaration can witness their contribution increase by 25%.

Data Cloud can assist in seamlessly connecting gift aid declarations made in different departments of the charity, such as retail and direct marketing. By unifying donor profiles from various sources, we can enhance the gift aid claim rate and identify donor segments that can be approached for further donations.

In regions where donors are required to report their donation history in annual tax returns, Data Cloud can also play a vital role. You can build segments that provide donors with an accurate summary of their donations from the past year through a unified profile. This information is then automated and delivered via the donor’s preferred communication channel using Data Cloud and Marketing Cloud.

By leveraging Data Cloud’s capabilities, charities can maximize tax benefits for their donors while enhancing donor engagement. The seamless integration of gift aid declarations and unified donor profiles allows for efficient and targeted communication, leading to increased donation rates and stronger relationships with supporters.

Ensure your donors receive the full benefits of their contributions while improving overall engagement by leveraging Data Cloud’s advanced features and Marketing Cloud’s communication capabilities.

Powering Up Your Marketing Strategy with Calculated Insights 

Data Cloud offers the powerful capability of calculated insights, enabling you to define and calculate multi-dimensional metrics across your data. This functionality allows you to create metrics at the profile, segment, and population levels, providing valuable insights for your marketing strategy.

  • By leveraging calculated insights, charities can accurately identify the stage of a donor journey a user is at by calculating income and engagement metrics from all data sources. This ensures that welcome, nurturing, and cross-selling campaigns are initiated at the right time and through the right channel, optimizing the donor experience.
  • Calculated insights are automatically updated as data changes, freeing up valuable time for your data team. This real-time updating ensures that your insights are always accurate and up-to-date, allowing for agile decision-making.
  • The point-and-click visual insights builder within SFDC can be utilized by team members of various levels and experience. This user-friendly interface empowers marketers and data analysts alike to effortlessly create and customize insights, enabling collaboration and maximizing the potential of your data.

With Data Cloud calculated insights, you can elevate your marketing strategy by gaining deeper insights into donor behavior, personalizing campaigns based on accurate metrics, and streamlining your data analysis process.

Final Thoughts

These are just a few of the benefits of nonprofits using Salesforce Data Cloud – including growth in income and simplifying of data management for marketing. 

As with any Salesforce product, these benefits can only be realized with a structured and well thought out implementation. The key to a successful Data Cloud (Salesforce CDP) project is the planning and discussion with key stakeholders before the build. 

Ensure you spend enough time on this stage to really understand your data. Yes, Data Cloud can be set up relatively quickly with its Marketing Cloud data bundles and connector to AWS S3 buckets. However, time really needs to be spent on understanding which data is coming in and which data will be required as output. 

Data Cloud provides a streamlined and standardized method to unify data sources and empower marketers with enriched audiences/ segments across the whole data set. I would strongly recommend exploring Data Cloud as part of your marketing tool chest alongside Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Also keep an eye out for the AI features such as GPT prompts for segments.

Leave your thoughts on CDP and its uses within the charity sector in the comments below…

The Author

Soheel Pirbhai

Soheel is a Marketing Cloud Consultant who specializes in the non profit sector.

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