24 ways to to bring automation to a charity

The surest sign of a small organisation is the omnipresence of “the wearer of many hats.” That’s often true whether it’s a one-person operation or has a sizable staff.

The problem with wearing many hats on the job is that none of your responsibilities get your undivided attention. This situation usually has one of two outcomes: either you (and your colleagues) work all the time, or things often fall through the cracks and work is eternally running behind.

Furthermore, without standardised processes for key business tasks, some details or steps might be skipped, overlooked, unnecessarily repeated or abandoned before completion. Business processes ensure conformity in an organisation’s daily operations. Since certain processes are repetitive and do not change, they are prime candidates for automation.

Fortunately, automation tools are not just for large enterprises—they have become simple and affordable, so they are well within many small organisations’ budgets. That means you can automate much of the tedious work and focus on strategic initiatives that will grow the business. The combination of your staff’s talents and automation will save time while amplifying efficiencies.

There are two categories of business functions: core and support. Core functions are the activities that generate income for the business and the primary reason the business exists. Support functions are secondary activities that support the core functions.

Companies can automate numerous steps in both core and support functions to increase efficiency and reduce costs. Ultimately, automation makes a business more competitive and sets it up for success.

Types of automation small charities should use

Often, small and medium-sized charities take advantage of software that both automates processes and produces insights and reports in a user-friendly dashboard.

A single solution can automate various tasks across departments and make a big difference. For example, leading CRM systems can automate processes related to marketing, fundraising, operations, and support.

While there are many types of automation small charities can and should use, they typically fall in one of three broad categories: marketing, operations and sales.

Types of small charity marketing automation

Marketing automation has been around for a while and become extremely popular. While you may not have sent out email blasts through a marketing automation platform, you’ve likely received such messages before. Marketing automation is a powerful tool for small charities because it coordinates marketing messages and delivers them across many channels on a set schedule.

Marketing automation solutions are closely tied to customer relationship management (CRM) systems. The marketing automation platform pulls data from the CRM, and a number of popular CRM solutions also have email marketing capabilities that help companies target prospective or existing customers with relevant marketing offers.

Marketing automation can help with efforts like:

1. Finding fundraisers: As new prospects come in, the marketing automation system can track these prospects as they move through the engagement cycle. The system will put prospects into various categories: marketing qualified leads, fundraising qualified leads, and so on. It will record any communication or key developments, and some systems will assign the prospects a score based on their potential to become active fundraisers.
2. Email campaigns: Marketing automation software can help coordinate email marketing campaigns and increase their effectiveness with performance metrics. For example, it might track the date your fundraisers committed to an event and send them details of similar events at an appropriate time.
3. Display ads: Prospects are more likely to convert into full fundraisers when they see multiple messages across different channels, and display ads on websites or social media platforms are another effective way to reach your audience. Marketing automation can ensure the right people see these ads. For example, a charity could target someone that clicked through an email about a new event with a Facebook ad about that same event.
4. Social media posts: A marketing automation system helps charities manage their posts across platforms and schedule future posts. It’s a centralised place for everyone to see the charity’s social media activity.
5. Direct mail campaigns: The system might, for example, trigger the mailing of a coupon to fundraisers who download the charity’s app.
6. Chatbots: Chatbots have quickly gained popularity because they allow charities to converse with prospects and customers without employee assistance. A chatbot can answer questions about a mission, or even promote certain events or services. Many chatbot providers integrate with leading marketing automation platforms.

Organisations that adopt marketing automation see an average 14.5% increase in sales productivity and a 12.2% reduction in marketing overhead. Eighty per cent of organisations that adopted marketing automation saw an increase in the number of prospects, and 77% experienced a lift in conversions.

Types of small charity operations automation

Small charities can automate numerous operational processes to free up staff’s time, ensure compliance with laws and even execute tasks while people aren’t working.

Areas in which charities can automate operations include:

1. Call centre scripting and escalations: Software can feed data into call centre scripts so agents don’t need to look up the information to provide support. In the event that issues can’t be resolved by the agent, automation can escalate the call to a more experienced support agent or a manager.
2. Payroll and timesheets: Employees can report their activities and hours online, which feeds into timesheets and an automated payroll system. Employee taxes and benefits are then calculated and subtracted from each paycheck.
3. Human resources: Onboarding and benefits enrolment automation enables employees to easily and quickly provide their personal information online to calculate tax and benefits withholdings. With human resources management software, employees can also schedule their vacation days in accordance with the employer’s rules and staffing needs per period.
4. Software and security patching: A software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution will automate software upgrades and security patches. That ensures your information is protected and you can take advantage of the latest features, work that could fall through the cracks when staff is busy elsewhere.
5. Supply chain: Purchase orders can be automated based on the charity’s current need for supplies or inventory. For example, the system can automatically order materials from trusted vendors to ensure an adequate supply. Or, imagine a distribution centre that can automatically receive replenishment orders to match real-time needs so shelves aren’t bare yet warehouses aren’t filled.
6. Business travel planning/scheduling: Automated business travel planning and scheduling allows employees to schedule and expense business travel within the rules and expense budgets set by the employer. This frees up managers to focus on key tasks that require their expertise rather than these distracting but necessary management activities.
7. Expense management: Employees can take a picture of receipts for travel, meals or other expenses and submit them through an app that then triggers a workflow for approval, reimbursement and posting to the company’s accounting records.
8. Employee utilisation: Automated systems can compute the number of employees needed for specific time periods based on historical data and daily plans. The solution can show only available employees, taking into account vacation times, travel schedules and other permitted leave so employers can assign work shifts accordingly.

Types of small charity sales automation

While many tend to think of e-commerce when it comes to sales automation, it’s important to remember that some aspects of brick-and-mortar retail can also be automated. For example, think of a shop texting customers when they are open during the changing lockdown periods.

Further, the lines between online and physical stores continue to blur as more customers use multiple channels, sometimes in the same transaction. For example, they might order a product online then pick it up curb side or place an online order in-store with the help of an associate for a product that’s out of stock. When information flows between these channels, it should make for a seamless customer experience both at the point of purchase and after.

Areas ripe for sales automation include:

1. Communication: A sales automation tool can automatically send a follow-up after a prospect expresses interest in fundraising. If a lot of time has passed since the last interaction between the charity and prospect, the system could remind the charity to check-in.
2. Transactions: Automation completes transaction details from the payment at the time of purchase to automated credit checks.
3. Contract management: Automation ensures compliance with a business’ contract rules to prevent problems down the road.
4. Ecommerce and reminders: The system can increase upsell or cross-sell opportunities by automatically listing recommendations such as “customers who bought this also bought,” or “people who entered this event also entered”, or “because you liked X, we think you’ll like Z.” Customers can also receive automatic email reminders about an event they viewed or put in their cart but didn’t purchase.

6 benefits of automation for your small charity

There are many benefits that come with automating business processes. Many of those benefits apply to organisations of all types and sizes. Below are the five biggest benefits of automation for small charities.

1. Productivity: Automation speeds up processes so work is completed faster and prevents repetitive work, like rekeying data. It also dramatically increases productivity in all areas of your organisation, including fundraising, marketing, payroll, accounting, supply chain and payment processing.
2. Visibility: When information is accessible to all departments because it automatically flows between systems, there’s improved visibility into business processes. This makes it easier to identify the source of problems and refine processes.
3. Improved data analysis: Automation also enables you to discover more insights and analyse more data than you would if manually tracking your charity’s performance.
4. Communication: Automation can track sales or the status of a project, update the team on progress and send important reminders and prompts to everyone. This increases organisation and makes it easier to run and grow. For example, the software can automatically generate milestones and progress reports and share them on a regular schedule that the company chooses. Supplies can be automatically replenished, calls automatically scheduled, vendors notified of purchasing policy changes, and fundraisers’ data shared among departments.
5. Reduced payroll costs: Automating tasks frees up employees’ schedules, allowing companies to increase work output without expanding the workforce or having to pay overtime. Conversely, companies can cut payroll costs and maintain the same level of output and productivity through automation.
6. Operational efficiency: Forrester predicts automation can cut operating costs by 90%. But beyond saving money, automation can give you peace of mind in knowing your business is compliant with laws and regulations, there are far fewer errors and little to nothing has fallen through the cracks. Since automation allows employees to get their work done faster, they can enjoy a better work-life balance.

Cloud Doing Good have an on-demand webinar covering digital transformation in charities, you can view this 20-minute session here.