SALESFORCE... WHAT IS IT?
Upon starting at BBP, one of my goals for 2019 was the integration and implementation of Salesforce. Its now July and we are as ready as we can be to make the switch!
Salesforce is a Customer Relationship Management system for Nonprofits that helps manage donations, memberships and general interactions with supporters like you! Other Nonprofits like ICL and Silver Sage Girl Scouts uses Salesforce, and we were inspired to switch to it from the success them and other Nonprofits have seen.
You may be asking yourself... So what? If you are a member, volunteer or supporter of BBP, this update affects you! I also want to let you all know that as we transition, things may get funky for a minute. Some of you may have received an email from Melinda (our project manager for Salesforce) regarding an expired membership, this is a part of the funk! Please be patient as we make this transition, and please contact me (nina@boisebicycleproject.org) if you see anything noteworthy.
I don’t want to get too detailed about the software, as I am sure many of you don’t nerd out on Nonprofit CRMs the way I do, but Salesforce and the features it comes with is freakin’ cool!
Check in/Check out: With Salesforce, Members can check in through their member number during your visits, take note of what you are working on for the day, and check out to see your total time in the shop. Not only will this help us collect data on how the shop is used, it gives members the ability to see a summary of your connection to BBP throughout the year!
Although we aren’t implementing volunteer tracking with Salesforce yet (it takes a lot of work to transition between software), we hope to use Salesforce to improve our volunteer tracking system. Tracking volunteer hours is a great way for us to give recognition to how many hours our volunteers provide to keep the wheels on BBP rollin’. It will also open up more grant opportunities for BBP that require numbers and data on our volunteer program.
Personal communication: Salesforce allows for BBP staff to email individuals directly through their software. Each individual in Salesforce has a unique account, one we can add information that is individual to you! So say you bought one of our Preservation Bikes and have been putting in a lot of time in the shop fixing it up to ride again. At the end of your journey, we could send an email to you about the total time you put into it, what parts you exchanged, and any other information about the build!
Donor to Member Migration: At BBP, we have supporters of all kind. One thing we will implement is upgrading donors at $100 or higher to our Membership program, and salesforce makes this easy and automatic! We hope this will bring more supporters in the shop that might not have otherwise.
There is a lot more that Salesforce brings us, but these are the features we are most excited about and that impact supporters like you.
Again, we thank you for your patience!
-Nina