Nonprofit organizations raise billions of dollars every year; there was $485 billion in charitable donations in the U.S. in 2021.(1) Mikel Lindsaar, founder and CEO of StoreConnect, appreciates the practical and financial challenges nonprofits must overcome to realize their philanthropic commitment to provide relief to those in need and improve the state of the world. But there are a lot of moving parts that can hinder their altruistic goals that need to be managed efficiently and cost-effectively to maximize a charity's contribution to society.
SAN FRANCISCO, May 16, 2023 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- "Be the change you want to see in the world" is the mantra of many nonprofit organizations and a noble one. While the mission is straightforward, achieving it is far more complicated than soliciting donations and sending money out into the world to do some good. As the name suggests, nonprofit organizations are not in the business of making a profit for themselves; they rely on the altruism of volunteers and the generosity of their donors. As tax-exempt entities, there are plenty of government oversight agencies, accountability organizations, and demands for assurances that donations are going to the cause and not into the coffers of those running the charity. Software as a Service (SaaS) technology has been a godsend to the nonprofit sector to manage the complex infrastructure of even the smallest of charitable agencies. Mikel Lindsaar, CEO and Founder of StoreConnect, observes, "A workforce shortage and hindrance of the effect of too many SaaS platforms trying to manage donor acquisition, operations, and fundraising present challenges for nonprofit businesses. More organization, planning, training, donor interface, and analysis needs to be done with fewer people and requires a single source of truth."
There has been steady growth in the proliferation of SaaS solutions for the nonprofit sector. The nonprofit software market size is expected to increase from nearly $42 million in 2022 to approximately $63 million by 2028, with products that offer software for fundraising, management, marketing, ERP (enterprise resource planning for day-to-day operations), and prospect research, to name a few.(2) Too many nonprofits lack sufficient operating funds. Utilizing SaaS technology, charitable organizations can increase efficiency and cost-effectiveness, benefiting volunteers, employees, and other stakeholders.
However, rather than creating a unified source of data management, the system ultimately consists of a series of software tools that, while useful in isolation, don't actually work well together. This overcomplicates the goal of simplification, requiring nonprofits, especially smaller organizations, to invest more money and valuable time in paying humans to get computers to talk to each other. The average nonprofit has 20 to 30 SaaS systems. Multiple systems cause vulnerabilities and security issues with permissions and access spread out across multiple systems and multiple people.
Lindsaar notes, "It's death by a thousand SaaS cuts. These tools often operate on different data models and override each other, with each trying to be the boss. Meaning it takes time to maintain and manage communication between multiple software applications, tying up valuable resources that chip away at the funds meant to serve a charity's cause and the people they serve."
An unforeseen complication most nonprofits contend with is a myriad of SaaS platforms, typically not integrated with each other and not audited by the nonprofit, which is also challenged with high turnover and churn-in staff and volunteers. This leads to process-level impediments due to multichannel outreach, like social media and email campaigns, complicating tracking efforts. And there is mounting pressure to demonstrate results. Nonprofits must prove their social impact objectives are being achieved, which can be a much more complex calculation. Nonprofits appeal to donors through multiple channels — websites, emails, newsletters, direct mail, multi-media, fundraising events, flyers, phone calls, and SMS texts. Evaluating the effectiveness and reach of these methodologies requires a unified software platform.
The success rate in soliciting charitable donations often depends upon the time of the year. People tend to be more generous during the holiday season; the month of December generates 31% of yearly donations, and 12% are collected during the last three days of the year.(3) This naturally leads to inconsistent resources throughout the year and from year to year. Software technology assists nonprofits with managing their budget and workforce and allocating their time and resources for optimal results. StoreConnect is Salesforce-native, meaning data and data processing occurs within the world's most successful customer relationship management (CRM) platform rather than a third-party server.
StoreConnect is the only fully-integrated eCommerce, point-of-sale, content management system and CRM platform powered by Salesforce; it incorporates a feature-rich platform that allows nonprofits to manage one-off or recurring monthly donations, memberships, merchandise sales, event booking, inventory management, workflow management, flexible fundraising and donation options, and a complete Content Management System (CMS). Lindsaar notes, "StoreConnect provides a single source of truth for nonprofits whose singular goal is to make a difference in the world."
StoreConnect is Time. Well Spent
About StoreConnect
Mikel Lindsaar, CEO and Founder of StoreConnect, is an experienced technology entrepreneur whose mission is to infuse small- and medium-sized businesses with the power to be successful in eCommerce 3.0 and scale to meet growing demand. Small companies can't waste time setting up their business on a platform only to repeat the process by changing platforms when they want to scale, nor do they want to waste time figuring out how to integrate multiple platforms. StoreConnect (built on the World's Number 1 CRM, Salesforce) gives clients a complete, powerful, configurable eCommerce and CRM solution where they can manage their website, online and in-store sales, provide amazing customer service, run all their digital marketing campaigns and have up-to-date detailed metrics, reporting and full understanding of their customer. They were awarded Salesforce's 2021 International Partner Innovation Award of the Year for the Retail sector and are changing the ease with which small businesses are run ─ with a manageable price tag. StoreConnect is Time. Well Spent. Visit https://getStoreConnect.com/.
References:
1) Charitable giving statistics. NPTrust. (2022, July 7). nptrust.org/philanthropic-resources/charitable-giving-statistics/
2) TheExpressWire. (2023, March 29). Nonprofit software market 2023 growth, trend, share, and forecast till 2030: 124 Pages report. Digital Journal. digitaljournal.com/pr/news/nonprofit-software-market-2023-growth-trend-share-and-forecast-till-2030-124-pages-report#:~:text=The%20global%20Nonprofit%20Software%20market%20size%20was%20valued%20at%20USD,USD%206245.85%20million%20by%202028
3) Aquire, S. (2023, April 4). 5 helpful tips for nonprofit giving season: Get the most out of it. Nonprofit Blog. donorbox.org/nonprofit-blog/fundraising-season#:~:text=The%20last%20quarter%20of%20the,year%20comes%20to%20a%20close
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SOURCE StoreConnect
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