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7 Ways Salesforce Development Will Boost Your Nonprofit Fundraising

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As their reliance on social media for promotional campaigns and donor engagement steadily increases with each passing year, more and more philanthropic organizations are turning to the Salesforce platform to bolster their nonprofit fundraising. Custom Salesforce development helps charities take advantage of the latest marketing trends by providing tools to help track information and communicate more efficiently with charity members, coordinating organizations, and prospective donors. The ability to simplify traditionally manual processes through Salesforce applications and other custom solutions allows nonprofits to focus more on their core missions and less on tedious, time-consuming administrative tasks. 

How Salesforce improves the efficiency of your nonprofit fundraising

 

Nonprofits who regularly engage in fundraising activities, like running marathons and hosting gala dinners, find the Salesforce platform especially beneficial. Salesforce provides tools to track donor information, record financial transactions, and automate workflows—all of which are integral to the success of any charity event. The platform’s ability to manage databases and create custom processes for marketing campaigns helps streamline records management and encourages better record-keeping overall. 

Custom Salesforce solutions also allow organizations to simplify donor records further by integrating data from third-party sources, like legacy software platforms or nonprofit portals—effectively providing users access to more comprehensive information at their fingertips. These capabilities streamline workflows and provide staff members with the data they need to be more effective advocates for prospective donors and existing supporters. Here are seven easy ways that Salesforce development will optimize online fundraising for any nonprofit. 

1. When asking for an email address, offer something of value in exchange. 

It’s essential to make sure you are offering donors something of value when they are providing their contact information for your donation portal. Give them something that they will find appealing—whether it is an eBook, a toolkit, or even some kind of coupon. By providing valuable content in exchange for the email address, you create an incentive, which ensures that the person receiving the content will be more likely to donate by better understanding your mission. 

2. Use Salesforce appointment scheduling to manage meetings with donors for nonprofit fundraising. 

At a certain point, your organization will need to hold meetings with donors to garner support for specific projects or initiatives. Salesforce appointment scheduling is the perfect solution because it streamlines the entire process from start to finish. You can use Salesforce to collaborate with staff members who are involved in any aspect of project management, such as: 

Maintenance

We discussed in our blog post, “5 things to Consider When Developing a Mobile App” how important it is to consistently update your Mobile App. Once your app is developed you’re going to need to perform regular upkeep to make sure your app is keeping up with new trends in mobile apps and therefore an enhanced user experience. Just like your business, your mobile app should always be evolving and growing. Discuss a maintenance plan with the development team. Be sure to incorporate this into your agreement before choosing a development team to work with. Maintenance and upkeep are almost as important as the initial build of your mobile app.  

  • Arranging meeting times and locations that work best for everyone involved  
  • Establishing specific objectives for discussion in the upcoming meeting. 
  • Assigning future tasks to specific members or staffers once the meeting is over 
  • Documenting what transpired during each meeting. 

3. Use Salesforce management software capabilities in tandem with a CRM tool. 

When managing a large donor community, many organizations improve overall efficiency by integrating CRM with certain Salesforce management tools used for nonprofit fundraising. In doing so, this enhanced functionality – which often includes Salesforce automation capabilities – ensures a seamless and consistent collection of information. Your staffers essentially only need to enter the data once instead of multiple times in numerous databases. Meanwhile, CRM software allows you to create forms from predefined templates, so staff members don’t need to waste valuable time creating custom questionnaires and surveys from scratch. 

4. Use Salesforce automation workflows to track donor engagement levels on social media. 

Social media is a great way to share information, but it’s also a great way to gauge which types of posts resonate most with your audience. With Salesforce marketing cloud features, nonprofits can easily track new “likes” and “shares” of social media posts made by the organization on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other platforms. The organization then adjusts its social media marketing campaigns, accordingly, based on which types of posts receive the most positive feedback from their followers. 

5. Use Salesforce data analytics to create personalized donor profiles – and use these profiles for social selling.  

The Salesforce platform allows for the creation of unique and customized donor profiles, which are especially useful for large organizations that have many donors or prospective donors on their marketing lists. Salesforce generates a complete profile from all the information you have on file for each member of your donor community, including contact details, donation history, favorite charity events, and more. By using this data, you then target your nonprofit fundraising efforts more effectively by creating custom lists for email blasts or newsletters based on specific criteria, such as: 

  • Industry 
  • Location 
  • Income levels 
  • Favorite charity events 
  • Age, occupation, or other socioeconomic factors 

You can then use these customized lists to implement specific social selling tactics, like contests or giveaways, that are more likely to attract that special kind of donor. The more personalized you can make your donor interactions, the more money you will raise. 

6. Use Salesforce development solutions to build a brand-specific website for your organization.  

With custom Salesforce development solutions in play, nonprofits make it easier for their staff members to build and maintain a branded website. It’s also easier to integrate the site with their CRM data on new donors, donation history, and contact information. Successful organizations then use this information, which often includes login credentials from any fundraising portal account, to tailor their marketing message further, based on each member’s profile. These state-of-the-art capabilities are invaluable when establishing authority within your industry while also boosting credibility among potential supporters or clients. 

7. Salesforce builds donor-facing portals with personalized fundraising requests.

 

Whether it’s an annual pledge drive, a matching campaign, or a crowdfunding effort, your organization will need to communicate directly with your major donors about specific fundraising efforts that are either underway or in the works. By using Salesforce as a central platform for this type of communication, your organization will ensure the consistent collection and tracking of data across all channels – including email marketing campaigns – so that you always have a complete record of everything happening on your end.  

Salesforce development: Even nonprofit fundraising can be highly competitive 

Even in the world of philanthropic enterprises, the competition for those donation dollars can be brutal. To be successful in charitable fundraising, you still need to think, act, and execute like a business professional. 

Salesforce provides a wealth of features and functionalities to improve the efficiency of your fundraising operations. By using the tips outlined above, you’ll save time and resources while simultaneously increasing in-house productivity. And before you know it, your newly implemented Salesforce nonprofit fundraising efforts will result in lots more donations coming your way in 2022 and beyond! 

How To Manage Multiple IT Vendors

Posted on by pumex_admin

Within every company, there is an ecosystem of vendors which add value to the supply chain and provide services outside of the organization’s area of expertise or as an adjunct to their internal staff. This vendor supply chain is often invaluable and helps move the objectives of the organization forward. If you live in a vendor heavy organization, where outsourced projects cross paths, you’ve probably run into the headache of finger-pointing.   When you are up against deadlines and you are managing multiple vendors with distinct project responsibilities that have dependencies on one another, it seems like an impossibility to avoid sometimes. Vendor finger pointing can be “tear your hair out” frustrating because at the end of the day, the project still needs to be completed and if timelines or budgets are being blown, the natural position for many is to try and deflect the blame.

What can be done?

 

The best way to manage vendor finger pointing is to handle it from the beginning before the project starts. Making sure you have well defined contractual engagements, a clear scope of work, and specific deliverables for each portion of the project, this will go a long way to solving these issues up front. Being able to go back to a document where someone signed on the dotted line is invaluable when disputes arise and trust me, disputes will arise in any project where there is a reliance across vendors.   In circumstances where you were not able to accomplish the above, it becomes imperative to move onto Plan B. Which is to assess the gaps in your vendor management process to alleviate friction. The “just get it done” while easy to say, probably isn’t going to solve the root issue and often only ratchets up the pressure, which often just increases the deflective capacity of the vendors that are failing on their commitments.

 

Plan B

 

Our experience tells us that there are a few places you can immediately look and solve issues:

 

Proper Vendor and Project Management

 

For large projects with multiple moving pieces that contain dependencies on one another, having a tactical, boots on the ground, Project Manager with the capability to make decisions is absolutely key. Your PM should have cross-project assignments and the authority, responsibility, and accountability for each project segment. If your PM doesn’t have the authority to make decisions, be held accountable for their decisions, and the responsibility for overall project success, then you are hamstringing them and hurting their ability to effectively manage the project.

 

For the very large projects, either having a PMO or following some kind of defined project management framework like SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework for the Enterprise) will be key to ensure your vendors are staying on track and managing those relationships.

 

In line with a good Project Manager, having a proper Business Analyst, whether provided by one of the vendors or internal to your staff will go a long way in ensuring project requirements and user stories are properly documented and communicated to the appropriate teams. But this is a function that can be handled by multiple roles and is a nice to have in comparison to the right project management.

 

Choosing a Lead Vendor

 

Usually, when the project isn’t going quite as planned, there will be a vendor that distinguishes themselves and continues to earn your trust. Don’t be afraid to rely heavily on that vendor, consolidate work, or give them a lead role in the production. These types of vendors have one goal, which is project completion. You will recognize them because they will take on leadership roles without being asked, they will attempt to help you manage the project more efficiently and try to help you deliver project areas that may be outside of their scope. When something goes wrong, these vendors come to you with facts and solutions, they don’t point fingers or allow emotions to cloud their judgment.

 

The best possible situation for a vendor you wish to take the lead would be to consolidate work to them. If they are succeeding, it’s because their internal processes and are sound, they have the right people in place on the team, and they are success oriented. If consolidating work isn’t a possibility, then consider placing them as the prime and arrange other vendors as subs on the contract. Finally, the last resort would be to hand them the project management responsibility and make them the gatekeeper for vendor activity. Put this vendor in a leadership role in the eyes of your other vendors and it will go a long way towards helping them, help you manage the overall project.

 

Unless the vendor knows the larger project is doomed to fail, they will be excited to take on this additional role. Often times, as an outsourced provider ourselves, we know that if the client handed more responsibility off to us, we could fix a lot of the issues they are facing in a project. The best vendors want to make their client happy, do good work, and deliver. Trust their track record and you will get the results you are looking for.

 

Pumex Computing is a technology consulting company. If you’re struggling with managing multiple vendors, we can help your organization take control of the project and get back on track. Check out everything we have to offer at https://www.pumex.com

Machine Learning Vs Predictive Analytics: What’s The Difference

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As Artificial Intelligence becomes more involved in business operations, the terms “machine learning” and “predictive analytics” are often confused to be the same thing. Though the two are basically under the same umbrella, they are completely different concepts. We decided to break down each concept and explain what they do and why they tend to get mixed up in conversation.

Machine Learning

Machine learning is an artificial intelligence technique where algorithms are used to process massive amounts of data without predetermined rules. Machine learning is growing in popularity for businesses because it allows for them to process massive amounts of data in real time. What makes them so powerful is that MI algorithms learn from their mistakes on past datasets to process future data more efficiently. An example would be feeding a company’s e-mail data to a machine learning algorithm, that would then use specific patterns to determine the difference between spam and important e-mails.

 

Predictive Analytics

Predictive Analytics is an area of study that has been around long before artificial intelligence. Predictive Analytics is the process of analyzing historical data and current data to find patterns. Businesses use these patterns to make informed predictions of the future and make better business decisions. Businesses that use predictive analytics usually have an upper hand on those who don’t. Predicative analytics allow businesses to as an example, make smarter marketing decisions by implementing specific marketing efforts based on past consumer data. If a company sees that a specific type of customer is more likely to make a purchase after receiving a 10% off coupon, businesses will target those customers.

 

Where They Collide

Because the two operations piggyback on each other, people tend to assume they’re the same thing when they’re really two separate operations; where predictive analytics can be a subset of the data garnered from Machine Learning. This relationship has made predictive analytics one of the more favorable applications for businesses trying to gain insight on their customers’ buying habits.

Whereas, the organization’s that implement Machine Learning allows the businesses to process their data faster and more efficiently. After machine learning has processed the data, businesses are able to take this data, implement a predictive analytics strategy, and are then able to make educated predictions to support their business efforts moving forward.

 

Looking to implement a machine learning solution to help process your organization’s data sets? Contact us at Pumex Computing and we can start the discuss what the best solution would be for your specific needs. https://www.pumex.com

How Your Development Team Benefits From Agile

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Agile Software Development has become the dominant methodology for software development teams. Essentially, Agile development divides a project into a series of sprints that rely on careful planning and feedback from the client. The development team works to complete each task during these 1-to-4 week sprints. Each ending with a tangible piece of software that is as market ready as possible. Client’s stakeholders are heavily involved during the development process. They are a part of the planning, software planning, software demo, functionality reviews, and assist with testing the software (UAT) after each sprint. Because the client is involved in each iterative release of the project, adjustments can be made during development so when the final software is completed it is exactly what the client wants.
Higher business values

The goal of this article is to give you a basic understanding of the Agile process and why it is hands down the recommended method for most software projects.  The Agile Disciplines go into great detail from a process perspective and have many different flavors like Scrum, Kanban, or SAFE.  While we aren’t going to tackle Agile from a process perspective, we do want to help you understand why it works so well from a business perspective.

BUSINESS VALUE:

The client and development team create a list of features or user stories which are then broken down into a set of development tasks and ranked by priority. This allows the development team to know what is most important for the client’s organization. The development team will start to build features in order of importance. Agile requires a feature is market ready before labeling it completed. As these features are completed, clients can begin beta testing parts of their software, providing them with business value through the entire life cycle of the development project.

FLEXIBILITY

With other software development methodologies, like Waterfall, a fixed scope of work is developed up front and the project is delivered based on that scope with little room for change or modification. This makes implementing changes to the software lifecycle often difficult and expensive.  In Agile, the flexibility to make changes during development makes it extremely popular. The client and development team can add, upgrade or even eliminate specific features during development to adjust processes or business rules that weren’t addressed at the start of the project.

BETTER QUALITY

Each feature has its own identity in the product backlog (the user stories broken down into their individual tasks). The development team adds a feature to the sprint and develops it until it’s market ready. Because of this cycle, code quality tends to be higher than with other software development methods. After each iteration, the software is tested and reviewed for bugs before being checked off as completed. In the end, Agile developed software tends to have fewer bugs and overall higher code quality because it is developed in segments to be market ready.

STAYING ON TIME

With other software development methods, the client and development team meet to define the scope of the project before the building begins. After this initial meeting there will be little contact between the client and development team, so if the scope has not accurately defined the project goals then budget, and deadlines can be at risk.

Because of Agile’s unique process of segmenting each feature and including the client every step along the process, the client and development team can redefine the scope to meet deadlines and budget. Most of the issues that development teams experience are not expected, being able to adapt and react makes Agile extremely efficient and allows for a higher success rate of completing the project to the organizational vision and on time.

CONCLUSION

Our goal is to create a piece of software that provides value for our customers. Our experience with Agile Software Development has proved to us that Agile’s process helps achieve that goal and makes the entire development process smoother for our clients. Agile allows us to have open communication with our clients, stay in budget, and deliver on time. We specialize in Software Development and work with multiple development methodologies, check out everything we have to offer at http://www.pumex.com

What to Look For In a Mobile Development Company

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In 2018 mobile isn’t a choice anymore – it’s a necessity. Mobile traffic surpassed desktop traffic in 2018 with 70% of all traffic came from mobile and 8% coming from tablets. Mobile traffic is only going to continue to grow and has established itself as the main type of web traffic.

Most businesses don’t have the resources in-house to develop a quality mobile app and need to procure an outsourced development team. Taking time in the beginning when deciding on a development company will save you a ton of time and money down the road. Because mobile is continuing to grow and become the most dominant channel of web traffic there are more development companies than ever. We put together some main attributes you should look for when deciding on a development company to build your mobile app.  

Portfolio

Asking to see a mobile developments company’s portfolio is extremely important. This is the company’s proof, and assurance that they can put their skills where their mouths are. Seeing their past work also gives you an opportunity to reach out to the companies and see exactly how the process went, and if they would recommend using them again for a project. Looking at a team’s portfolio also allows for you to look at other work they’ve done that aligns similarly to what you’re trying to create. You can ask questions such as; what was the length, did you have any unforeseen challenges, and how did you overcome them?  

Price

When looking to develop a mobile app you don’t want to skimp out on price. You also don’t want to overpay. Mobile development projects can range anywhere from 10’s of thousands to 100’s of thousands of dollars. Look for a development team that can work with your budget. The bigger development companies charge more due to having larger overhead. Use the development teams portfolio to get a sense of the clients that they have worked with. If their past clients are like you then chances are they’ll align within your budget.  

Communication

Communication is key – period. This is no exception when deciding to develop a mobile app. There are different development methodologies that vary in the amount of communication between the development team and the customer. Before discussing anything, think about how much involvement you want to have throughout the development process. If you want to have little to no involvement during the process, think about using a waterfall development methodology. If you’re looking for more transparency and want to be informed every step of the way – an agile development methodology is the approach to take. Regardless of how much or little you want to be involved in the process, be sure to make it clear with the development team. This will allow them to develop the right development process that will best align with your needs.  

Maintenance

We discussed in our blog post, “5 things to Consider When Developing a Mobile App” how important it is to consistently update your Mobile App. Once your app is developed you’re going to need to perform regular upkeep to make sure your app is keeping up with new trends in mobile apps and therefore an enhanced user experience. Just like your business, your mobile app should always be evolving and growing. Discuss a maintenance plan with the development team. Be sure to incorporate this into your agreement before choosing a development team to work with. Maintenance and upkeep are almost as important as the initial build of your mobile app.  

Release

You found a company that aligns with your budget. They created the perfect development process and incorporated a great maintenance plan for after the build. Your app is done – how’re you going to release it? The process to launch your app to the public can vary in length depending on the platforms you choose to make the app available on, such as Apple, Google, or even a Progressive Web App. Regardless, this is an extremely important process and working with a development company that can guide you through the process is extremely important. Talk with the development team about their experience with pushing mobile apps to market, and how they can help you with yours.  

Conclusion

A simple google search with show you just how many mobile app development companies there are to choose from. Make sure you cover all the steps before deciding on a development company to work with. At Pumex Computing we work with you to design a mobile app that will work for your business. If you are trying to take your business mobile contact us! http://www.pumex.com/contactus

5 Things to Consider When Developing a Mobile App

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Every year it becomes more and more apparent that a mobile strategy is becoming a requirement and not an option for businesses. 57% of all U.S. web traffic now comes from smartphones & tablets. The Mobile App market continues to grow like wildfire and shows no signs of slowing down. It has become clear that businesses need to focus on a mobile strategy. The main question is – What strategy do you focus on?   A lot of companies are deciding to develop their own Mobile Apps. Having an app developed for your business provides multiple benefits. Here are 5 ways your business can benefit from a mobile app.  

Fix a problem

Chances are you started your business to meet the needs of a customer or solve some sort of problem. The same thought process should be carried into your mobile strategy. When developing a mobile app, the focus should be on having a clear direction. Why are you creating the app? If your mobile app is irrelevant and doesn’t provide a solution and fill a void for its users, then your app will be looked at as irrelevant.  

Value

I heard a quote from Gary Vaynerchuck when he was speaking about the app, Uber – “Uber doesn’t sell transportation. Uber sells time and convenience.” Uber’s value is time and convenience. What is the value that you’ll provide your customers with? A lot of businesses are using mobile apps, which probably includes your competitors, to streamline specific services, and processes for customers, and employees internally. Dunkin Doughnuts, Starbucks, McDonalds… you name it – are all taking advantage of their consumer’s value of time. Even the majority of fast-food restaurants have created apps that allow customers to pre-order and pay before arriving at their locations. Your app needs to provide a value to the user, something that’ll increase the day-to-day of the user.  

Simplicity

The user experience is one of the most important things to consider when developing your Mobile App. Apps are dominantly task-oriented and are used to make life simpler. Think about the mobile apps that you use for your day-to-day tasks. How simple is the interface? How many tasks are you able to do in the app? If you use this thought process to reverse engineer yourself as a consumer, you’ll have a better understanding of what you really want in your Mobile App. Users should be able to figure out how to use your mobile app with little to no guidance. If your app is too complicated to figure out, users will not find value in it. All-in-all you want users to recognize the value in your app their first time using it. The saying is true when developing a mobile app – “Less is more.”  

Develop your mobile app for IOS and Android

It is vital that you develop your mobile app to work with the 2 major platforms, IOS and Android. Developing with a Cross-Platform Framework allows your app to be used on every major platform, therefore saving you time and cost as opposed to developing for each platform individually.  

Create regular updates

In the forever changing digital world we live in, technology is always progressing and evolving. Being able to adapt and react to your user’s needs is extremely important for your Mobile Apps success. To make sure your App stays relevant it needs to be consistently maintained and updated. Updates are needed to ensure that bugs are fixed, content is updated, and your users are continuing to find value in your Mobile App.  

Conclusion

A mobile strategy in 2018 is a must. If you do decide to develop a Mobile App remember; have a goal, provide value, keep it simple, and update, update, update. Do you have an idea for your company’s mobile app strategy? At Pumex Computing we specialize in the development of Cross-platform, Hybrid, and Native Mobile Apps. We develop Mobile Apps that will work for your business. To find how Pumex can help your business, contact us today. https://www.pumex.com