Humane Society Silicon Valley

The Heller Consulting Team helped us plan, find, and implement the right combination of technology to support our strategic goals. They’ve also provided expert guidance along the way that has been critically important to us being able to use our new technology ecosystem as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Joanne Jacobs 
Chief of Operations, HSSV

Challenge: Technology Solutions Not Up For The Job

In 2018, HSSV Chief of Operations Joanne Jacobs was tasked with upgrading the organization’s operations and technology. She quickly recognized that HSSV’s existing customer relationship management (CRM) and online marketing solutions could not keep pace with the organization’s long-term goals for constituent engagement and growth. Some of the challenges the HSSV faced with their existing solutions included:

• Lack of a complete view of constituent data due to poor integration among solutions, making it difficult to implement personalized and targeted constituent engagement and fundraising campaigns
• Need to scale marketing and fundraising activities and lack of technology support to reach those goals
• Tools that were difficult for staff to use, which created inefficiencies across the organization

Solution: Technology Ecosystem That Supports Goals

Having worked with Heller Consulting since 2012, HSSV turned to the Heller team again for a comprehensive technology strategy and implementation solution.

The solution included:

• A technology roadmap that aligned HSSV’s technology strategy with their organizational goals
• Solution selection and fit assessment that evaluated and recommended a connected ecosystem of technology to support HSSV’s unique marketing, fundraising, and operational efforts
• Implementation of new solutions in the technology ecosystem, including coordination of efforts across vendors to ensure a successful launch of all solutions as well as strategic guidance to help ensure HSSV’s business processes optimize use of the new solutions

Results: Efficient And Effective Engagement And Fundraising

HSSV has successfully moved to a new technology ecosystem aligned with the organization’s long-term goals. The combination of a core Salesforce CRM platform with new digital solutions allows HSSV to streamline processes and improve the effectiveness of their marketing and fundraising efforts. 

For example, HSSV now:

• Uses a 360-degree view of data in Salesforce CRM to create personalized constituent and donor communications based on their engagement with the organization.
• Delivers highly personalized engagement journeys with pet adopters that mention pets by name and provide specific tips and encourage deeper engagement with HSSV.
• Uses Pardot to streamline processes and communications. For example, during the COVID-19 crisis, HSSV was able to:
  • Rapidly move from in-person fostering and adoption processes to virtual processes when an immediate “shelter in place” order was issued in California
  • Keep up with a surge in calls from people who were considering pet adoption by automating the initial steps of the process that identify the best leads for new adopters
  • Rapidly recruit volunteers and future volunteers through an automated email nurturing campaign