Why our way is the best way (IMHO!)
Nicole Aebi-Moyo
Delivering exceptional experiences for the For Purpose sector in Australia and New Zealand
I’ve been doing this Salesforce stuff since 2008, and I used to say “Salesforce can do anything: let’s just build it”. For a while that was perhaps the best approach, but some time ago I changed my mind and I believe that this is no longer the case. This month’s edition is all about why.?
To illustrate the point, I’m going to focus on fundraising, but the same could be said for a whole range of things. The joy about Salesforce is the choice that you have. Some people find this confronting and it can be hard to keep up, but I still say having the choice to use the tools that meet your needs is one of the best things about the platform and its ecosystem.?
There are lots of ways to deliver fundraising solutions using Salesforce: you can use one of a handful of solutions built using the Salesforce solution itself like Posimente or Payments2Us; or you can integrate to one of the many best of breed solutions out there like Raisely.?
We think the best approach is to let the best of breed solutions do what they’re good at: including letting Salesforce be your CRM. To help me explain why, I spoke to James Stinson from Raisely to get his take as well.
Fundraising: there’s a lot to it
When we say fundraising, what do we mean? So many things. There’s the online side of fundraising: providing your supporters with an easy way to give you money whether that’s on a once off basis, as a regular commitment, or part of a peer to peer campaign. There’s also the offline side of things: people still send cash, cheques and their oh so precious credit card details through the post to be opened, processed and banked by you. Bless them.
But there’s two key aspects to each of these donation options: one is the processing of the payment; the second is the recording of the details. We don’t think that Salesforce should be doing both. Instead, we recommend getting the best of breed solutions to come together to do the jobs they were designed to do, and let Salesforce simply be your CRM.?
Of course, there are solutions out there that deliver online donation forms and payment processing solutions built purely on the Salesforce platform. We’ve implemented and supported a couple of them, but we’re also often asked to migrate organisations off said platforms to other options, so what’s the right choice?
Well that’s up to you: one size does not fit all. You have to decide whether you’re the sort of organisation that wants to go down the “putting everything in Salesforce” route, or the “bring together a selection of tools” route. I’m hoping this article will help you make that choice.??
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying donation platforms built on the Salesforce platform are badly designed or not fit for purpose. They absolutely have their place and you should investigate what’s out there and decide on the best approach for you and your organisation.
The Best of Breed Approach
For online donations (once off or regular gifts), we typically suggest something like Raisely. With a lovely embedded form on your website, your donors can safely make donations using a secure payment gateway, and with a simple integration, the information about that donor and their payment, can make its way into Salesforce.?
Essentially your two options are one where you’re in control of everything (Salesforce does the payment processing, etc); and one where you’re outsourcing things. Why do we suggest the latter is better?
James from Raisely said “well everyone can create a tool, but not everyone can support and constantly innovate that tool. Tools built with a solid support infrastructure lead to long-term gains”.?
Support and Innovation
With control comes responsibility. If you want to be in control of everything, you have to own the support and development of your online donation forms. Do you have a team of engineers, developers, UI/UX designers, and so on to plan, develop and deliver a roadmap of new features to your online platform? I’m guessing not, but Raisely does.
That’s not to say that the alternatives don’t also have resources dedicated to developing and improving their solution, so of course when you’re making your choice about which solution option to go with, please do ask them what their roadmap looks like so you’re comparing apples with apples. Ask them how many organisations around the world are using their solution and what lessons have they learnt from that wider collective. What fundraising expertise and insights can they bring to the table to help you deliver better fundraising outcomes?
My point is that fundraising is all that Raisely does: they’re experts in it. They have hundreds of customers, running tens of thousands of campaigns on their platform. They’ve made a deliberate choice NOT to expand their solution to do everything. They’re adding features and functionality to enhance the online fundraising experience for their customers and their supporters.
Quality in a one-stop shop
If you try to get one solution to do everything, the quality of that everything often drops. I liked James’ analogy here: “I shop at Aldi for some things and Coles for others, purely because quality matters. Aldi are good at some things, Coles are better at others. And for some things, I go to the local veggie shop! The point is, I have a choice. What I look for in digital tools is high quality and a good roadmap of innovation, but also the ability and ease to change tools if a better one comes along.”
Quality comes from specialisation and experience, and from the pressure of a competitive environment. If they make it easy for you to swap from one platform to another, maintaining Salesforce as your core CRM, then the platforms you’re using have to remain ahead of the trend. They have to bring you along for the ride, and not the other way around.?
Another James analogy here: how frequently do you shop around for a better insurance or utility provider? Maybe not every year (who’s got the time!) but on a semi-regular basis, most people would go look at the market to see if what’s out there is going to give them a better outcome. And they’ll use a range of factors to decide such as price; service and support; environmental impact; and so on. The importance of each of those factors will be different for each person, just as the importance of the different decision criteria will be different for each organisation.?
So in summary, our approach to delivering quality outcomes using Salesforce is to look at what tools are out there and make recommendations based on your specific requirements. We think the best approach is to bring together a collection of best of breed solutions, with Salesforce at the core, to ensure that each solution is doing what it was designed to do.?
If you’d like to find out more about our approach, please do reach out. We’d be happy to chat.?
Or have some thoughts about the points made in this article, please do comment below. I’d love some good debate on this topic!
Next month is Dreamforce month! As I’m lucky enough to be heading to Dreamforce this year (thanks SalesFix), I’ll be sharing all the things I learn whilst I’m there. There’s plenty of NFP-specific sessions on things like migrating from NPSP to Nonprofit Cloud; the Nonprofit Cloud Roadmap; AI and data (of course!); and so much more.
I wish you all the success in your mission to make a difference. Keep striving for excellence, and together, lets continue to make a positive impact by sharing expert strategies for changemakers with Not-for-Profit Navigator.
Until next time,
Nicole
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Director, Regional Product Success, APAC
3 个月Great article Nicole Aebi-Moyo. Have a fab time at Dreamforce!!
Head of Marketing - Raisely | ex Employment Hero ?? | ex GoCardless ??, ex MOO, lover of Bioglitter ?
3 个月Love this! ?? Such great insights
Human for Digital Solutions | Enabler for NFP Tech
3 个月A joy to chat this over with you Nicole Aebi-Moyo and an article I’ll be sharing to support others with. As a pug owner, loved the ‘best in breed’ reference. Will be using that ??
Nicole Aebi-Moyo what a great blog! ?? We completely agree with the emphasis on choice and flexibility. At Raisely, we're all about giving you the tools to enhance your fundraising efforts while you use Salesforce as your CRM backbone. You've captured our thoughts completely regarding the best-of-breed approach - specialised solutions excel at what they do best. You're so right - By partnering with innovative tools, you get continuous improvement and support, helping you achieve long-term fundraising success. Here's to smart integrations and making a bigger impact together! ??