3 Steps to Move Your Higher Ed Advancement Team Forward with Salesforce

Many higher education advancement teams are ready to implement more sophisticated approaches to donor and alumni engagement. But to do so, they need to move away from their aging software. They need technology that gives them better access to their data, helps them work more efficiently, and generally supports more innovative and modern practices.

That’s why many advancement teams are considering a move to Salesforce.

Let’s look at some of the advantages of Salesforce for higher education advancement and how to move forward with Salesforce for your advancement team.

Why advancement teams consider using Salesforce

Salesforce is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform known for its adaptability, scalability, and innovation. It can serve as a strong foundational layer for a technology stack that’s adapted to support the specific needs of higher education advancement teams.

These aspects make Salesforce a compelling option for advancement teams that want to use more innovative approaches for donor and alumni engagement. It’s especially ideal for teams that want:

• Tools that support modern donor and alumni engagement practices, including comprehensive constituent management and tailored communications
• A technology platform that continuously innovates with tools such as workflow automation, business analytics, and artificial intelligence
• A flexible technology stack that can be configured, adapted, and extended over time to support changing business processes and goals

Learn tips and insights about using Salesforce for your higher education institution. Read the guide, Transforming Advancement and Fundraising in Higher Education with Salesforce 

 

 

3 steps to move your advancement team forward with Salesforce

If you’re considering a change to Salesforce as the platform for your advancement team’s efforts, here are three steps to help you move forward:

1. Make planning a priority.

When you’re ready for a technology change, sometimes you just want to get going – especially when you’ve had enough of using outdated software. But taking time to make a clear plan will help you align stakeholders, prioritize needs, make better decisions, and keep projects on time and within budget.

To get started:

• • Pull together a team of key stakeholders from your organization. This team should include leaders from departments that are involved with data and processes that are key to your advancement team’s activities. It should also include representatives of any teams that will be direct users of the new technology.

  • Define and prioritize your needs. Consider what business problems you’re trying to solve. What are your goals and objectives? What are your key performance indicators that you can use to measure success with the new technology?

    Then, make a list of what tech functionality is critical to reaching your goals. Break the list into “must-haves” and “nice-to-haves”. Think about what functionality you need now and what you might be able to implement later.

  • Evaluate your technology systems and data. To get the full benefits of moving to a new platform like Salesforce, it’s critical to get a handle on your data. If you share data with other systems outside of your advancement department, then be sure to document the systems, processes, and data points that are shared.

    Also, determine what sets of data drive your advancement team’s activities so that you can make sure this data is migrated to and housed properly in the new software. As you do this, make sure your data is of high quality and cleaned properly. If not, plan to clean it up, as doing so will make the data migration effort much more efficient when you implement your new technology.

These planning activities might seem like a tall order – especially when you’re already facing a move to a new system. But doing this pre-implementation planning now will give you the time you need for internal discussions and, in the end, will help your move to Salesforce run more smoothly – saving you time and dollars in the long run.

2. Think about your technology stack.

With Salesforce as your technology platform, you can choose among a wide array of products that meet your advancement team’s needs in multiple areas – including prospect management, gift processing, event management, marketing automation, and document management. You can even change them out in the future if your needs change.

Here are some of the more common applications that higher education advancement teams choose for their needs:

• • Advancement and fundraising – is an application built on the Salesforce platform specifically for advancement and constituent engagement. It provides a strong foundation for advancement activities right out of the box. It handles complex advancement needs that extend beyond the capabilities of typical fundraising software to address things like degree information, activities constituents were involved with as students, and giving capacity.
  • Event management – Platforms that are native to Salesforce, including Blackthorn and Linvio, allow advancement teams to support every aspect of events – including registration, payments, and communications with alumni, donors, students, and staff. Information about event participation can be easily added to the constituent’s CRM record.
  • Marketing automation – Marketing automation helps advancement teams move from basic email marketing to more sophisticated and targeted communications and interactions while working more efficiently. Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Marketing Cloud Account Engagement are common options in this category, as they natively integrate with the Salesforce platform.
  • Document management – Digitizing document management helps to reduce paperwork and streamline processes while improving security. Tools including Conga and Formstack are examples of tools in this area. They can help with all kinds of documents – from statements of donor gift intent to grants acceptance to gift tax receipts.

Consider what types of applications your advancement team will need in your Salesforce environment. Document this vision for your technology stack so that you can refer to it as you move forward with your Salesforce project.

3. Determine your implementation plan.

This is really where you take the next leap toward moving to Salesforce for your advancement team. Some key aspects to consider include:

• • Confirming that Salesforce is the right platform for your advancement team
  • Selecting the specific mix of solutions for your tech stack
  • Defining how your new system will be implemented, including details for configuration, data migration, testing, staff training, launching, and support
  • Implementing the system to align with your team’s business needs and finding ways to optimize your processes in the new system
  • Managing change throughout the project

Each of these aspects is vital to a successful technology implementation. Many advancement teams find that they have greater success when they work with a partner that has experience with Salesforce implementations for higher education advancement. Working with an experienced partner helps ensure a smoother implementation process with less disruption to the advancement team’s day-to-day work.

Move forward with Salesforce for your advancement team

The benefits of moving to Salesforce for your advancement team can be well worth the effort. But it can also seem intimidating. Here at Heller Consulting, our team of experts is ready to help. As implementation partners for Salesforce and ascend, we can help you build a plan for your advancement technology, select the right solutions for your needs, prepare for the move to new technology, and implement it successfully. Contact us today to learn more and take the next step.