Salesforce Experience Cloud as a Nonprofit and Donation Management Solution

For many years, Salesforce has been creating strong technology solutions for various fields, including nonprofits, schools, and philanthropic groups. Today, Salesforce offers a variety of products and features to improve how operations run, assist in fundraising, handle grants, monitor program impact, and connect with supporters. 

In this article, we’ll explore Salesforce and its Experience Cloud DXP platform as a solution for nonprofit and donation management. We’ll guide you on using Salesforce CRM for nonprofits and show you how it helps achieve philanthropic missions through custom Experience Cloud solutions.

Salesforce for nonprofits: an overview

Salesforce for nonprofits offers a comprehensive suite of technology solutions tailored to connect nonprofit with individuals passionate about its cause. With the Power of Us program, eligible educational institutions and nonprofits can even get started with the Salesforce technology at a discounted price.

At the core of Salesforce for nonprofits is Nonprofit Cloud. It’s an all-in-one solution with tools for fundraising, managing programs, handling cases, and tracking outcomes. If your organization deals with giving out money or grants, there’s also Nonprofit Cloud for Grantmaking. It goes beyond Nonprofit Cloud by adding tools to manage the whole process of giving out grants.

It’s also possible to opt for a ready-made package that works smoothly with Salesforce, like the Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP). NPSP organizes data for nonprofits, including details about the people you work with, your fundraising efforts, and your programs.

Difference between NPSP and Nonprofit Cloud

In July 2018, Salesforce announced exciting news about the first release of its new Nonprofit Cloud solution. Previously, all nonprofit organizations used NPSP as the main technological solution for the efficient management of common nonprofit business processes. NPSP is an app that sits on top of Salesforce Enterprise Edition. It is preconfigured for nonprofits as an easy-to-use fundraising and constituent management application, designed to make the daily life of nonprofits much easier. NPSP is a free, open-source product.

So, starting from 2018, nonprofits can leverage a new powerful solution that goes beyond the foundational capabilities of NPSP, offering advanced tools and functionalities that streamline operations, enhance relationship management, and increase the efficiency of eligibility assessments. 

Features included in Nonprofit Cloud:

• Constituent Management
• Case Management
• Program Management
• Fundraising
• Outcome Management

Nonprofits can go beyond Nonprofit Cloud by using Experience Cloud for Nonprofits or Nonprofit Cloud for Grantmaking.

Nonprofit Cloud VS NPSP: Exploring the Key Differences

We’re hearing a lot of buzz about transitioning to Nonprofit Cloud, especially from nonprofits who previously used Salesforce’s NPSP pack. In this blog, we are providing you with an understanding of Nonprofit Cloud and its features, and exploring key differences between the solutions.

Nonprofit Cloud for Grantmaking

Nonprofit Cloud for Grantmaking includes access to grant and budget management features helping nonprofits manage the entire grant life cycle. Main capabilities include creating funding opportunities, managing applications and reviews, tracking grant applicant budgets and results, and more.​

OmniStudio

The OmniStudio automation tool is included in Nonprofit Cloud, which means nonprofits can easily and quickly create custom user-friendly applications with just clicks, using drag-and-drop configuration. This allows them to deliver guided experiences that volunteers, donors, or supporters truly expect. OmniStudio is a valuable tool for nonprofits as it helps enhance donor engagement, streamline donation or fundraising processes, simplify data management, and improve interactions with the platform.

How to Use Salesforce OmniStudio for LWC Development on Experience Cloud

Salesforce OmniStudio is gaining a lot of popularity among Salesforce admins and developers who deal with Experience Cloud. Being available on different clouds like Nonprofit and Education Cloud and powered by great tools, it really simplifies the development and customization processes, making it much easier and faster to customize and implement UX/UI into the Experience Cloud site, delivering experiences that customers truly expect.

Salesforce for donor management

Using Salesforce for fundraising and managing donors significantly improves the way nonprofits handle their tasks. From building connections with supporters to overseeing contributions and monitoring engagement, Salesforce provides a range of tools to simplify processes and aid nonprofits in accomplishing their philanthropic goals. Nonprofits can organize donations efficiently using the Nonprofit Success Pack, a tool we’ve covered before. NPSP is crafted to manage various types of donations nonprofits receive, including one-time donations, matching gifts, recurring contributions, tributes, and more. Within Salesforce, contributions are termed as “Opportunities.” An Opportunity is a specially created record in Salesforce to log revenue details, such as the amount, date, and the person or organization contributing the funds. While businesses employ Opportunities to track sales, nonprofits leverage them to monitor donations.

What types of donations can you gather with Salesforce NPSP:

• Recurring donations.
• Pledges. Easily manage pledges with Opportunities and Payments.
• Matching gifts. Establish a robust corporate matching gift program in your organization to collect donations from your employees.
• In-kind gifts. Gather donations of goods or services like computers, food, clothing, equipment, or professional expertise – all in Salesforce.
• Honor and Memorial Donations. Track who the donation was made in honor of.
• And others…

Experience Cloud for Nonprofits 

With Experience Cloud for Nonprofits, organizations can create secure online portals for volunteers, donors, and clients, facilitating engagement with the nonprofit. Site users can perform actions such as viewing and working with cases, programs, and benefits. With an Experience Cloud for Nonprofits license, organizations also gain access to objects in Nonprofit Cloud Products, including Salesforce NPSP, Volunteers 4 Salesforce, and Nonprofit Cloud Case Management. Experience Cloud for Nonprofits can be used as an extension to these packaged solutions.

Salesforce Experience Cloud for Nonprofits: License Overview

Read the article to learn about the new Salesforce for non-profits license and its main features.

Setting up donations with Salesforce Experience Cloud

With Experience Cloud, charities can create stunning nonprofit Salesforce sites for fundraising and establishing connections with their contributors to allow donors to easily contribute to the organization. These can be member or volunteer portals, sites for higher education or alumni, or portals specifically for fundraising to collect donations and support those in need.

Being flexible and customizable, Experience Cloud platform allows for creating secure branded portals that exactly meet the needs of the nonprofit whether for gathering gift payments or for donor/volunteer management. 

Experience Cloud works with other Salesforce cloud solutions. For instance, if you’re dealing with basic tasks like managing donors, it’s essential to have Salesforce as your main CRM. On the other hand, for more intricate tasks like managing cases, Experience Cloud requires access to your Nonprofit Cloud Case Management object.
How to set up donations on the Experience Cloud fundraising portal? An online charity site with a donation system in place can be created through a combination of out-of-the-box Salesforce tools and customization within the Experience Cloud. Nonprofit organizations can enhance their charity efforts by installing comprehensive nonprofit donor management software, allowing them to establish a robust donation management system on their Experience Cloud site.

A Complete Guide on Salesforce Experience Cloud for Nonprofits

Uncover the benefits of Salesforce Experience Cloud for nonprofits: explore the platform's features & discover how it can help manage donations, events, members, and more.

AC MemberSmart as a donor management software for nonprofits for Experience Cloud

AC MemberSmart is a comprehensive member management solution for Experience Cloud that provides enhanced functionalities for efficient member/donor/volunteer management, events, networking, discussions, collaboration, asset sharing, and fundraising. With a feature like Payments & Donations, the app can be used as a donation management solution for Experience Cloud for managing and tracking fundraising activities.

AC MemberSmart helps in managing donors and tracking their involvement, including donation amounts and comments they’ve posted right from the Experience Cloud site. You can set up automated donation receipts and follow-up thank you emails to show your appreciation for their contribution. With AC MemberSmart you can gather donations right from your Experience Cloud fundraising portal. 

Features included: 

• Multi-currency support. Users can pay with secure debit and credit card payments in the currency they prefer, as well as track all transactions easily
• Secure card processing
• NPSP integration
• Stripe API integration. All payment processes are safe
• Responsive design
• Online donations
• Multiple payment methods
• One-time and recurring donations
• Auto-complete payment info for logged users

E-commerce secure donations on Experience Cloud

Nonprofits have the option to utilize Experience Cloud’s website, complemented by the AC eCommerce for Nonprofits solution, to generate funds for their charitable projects. They can design an impressive online store to sell products or services and receive direct donations on the site during checkout. Salesforce provides seamless integration with donation processing services like PayPal and Stripe, ensuring a simple and secure way for nonprofits to gather donations and safeguard donor information.

Setting up a donation option on the checkout form allows charities to encourage their supporters to make additional contributions to their organization while completing their purchases. This serves as a good complementary method for receiving donations through the Experience Cloud site.

Conclusion

So, as you can see, Salesforce with its native technical capabilities is the best option for nonprofits that rely on fundraising. Salesforce Experience Cloud stands out as a valuable solution for those who want to set up a donation management system and gather donations right from the website. By complementing Experience Cloud with custom solutions like AC MemberSmart or AC eCommerce for Nonprofits, charities can get an all-in-one solution covering everything from donor management to secure payment processing. With Salesforce, Experience Cloud and custom apps, nonprofits can confidently and effectively direct their efforts toward their mission, knowing they have a robust tool at their disposal.