Call it what you will, but this is the dominant challenge in the nonprofit world. According to a recent study by Forvis, 2023 was a good year for nonprofits, much better than 2023.
More than 50% of organizations report being in a better financial state than they were a year ago.
Still, the Forvis report also found exactly what we learn every day working with thousands of nonprofits across the world: funding is the biggest challenge they face, followed by staffing issues:
Staffing issues are a byproduct of funding shortage: you can’t hire people if you can’t pay them.
Together, they have formed the perfect storm: nonprofits can’t deliver programs and services aka the two things that increase their revenue. It’s a vicious circle.
TL;DR: nonprofits operate on a shoestring budget with a skeleton crew. No wonder they can’t grow at the pace they wanted.
What can we do about it?
Glad you asked!
The internet is the first tool that allowed nonprofits to expand beyond their local communities. Sure, some organizations, like UNICEF, had global operations long before the internet was a thing.
But for smaller nonprofits, that was not tenable.
The internet allowed them to communicate at scale and reach donors and stakeholders across oceans. Better yet, the internet was free to use and, for a while even organic social media worked (remember when Facebook had real organic reach?).
The problem? All good tools have a limited lifespan.
Organic social media stopped working years ago, and you had to pay to reach your followers. A more affordable way to do so at scale was always email marketing.
Tools like Mailchimp or Constant Contact allow you to send emails to millions of people for pennies/email.
Similarly, CRMs like Salesforce allow you to have better control over your leads and your donors. You know who donated, who hasn’t in a while, who’s your biggest donor, and what your best month is.
But email marketing and CRMs abide by the rule of decay mentioned above. After a while, they get bloated and become too cumbersome to use, not to mention get actionable insights.
This is when you need to upgrade your tech stack. If you feel like you’re drowning in data but:
It’s a matter of data silos.
Here’s how a SyncApps client solved it.
This is a quote a nonprofit client of SyncApps left on G2. You can read the full review here.
In it, they noted that “smooth and accurate communication” was the cornerstone of their strategy — I know everyone in the nonprofit sector can relate to that. If you can’t reach your audience with timely messages, you’ve lost them.
They go on to say:
“Where we were once using numerous programs and processes to facilitate these connections, SyncApps has allowed us to efficiently consolidate and streamline our data synchronization between Salesforce and MailChimp.
The platform has a user-friendly interface that allows even non-tech savvy users to utilize it, and we have been impressed with the reliable data transfer, error-handling, and immediate sync options that allow us to pivot as needed and support our ever-changing communications needs.
As a small nonprofit, the cost can be a bit of a hurdle. However, the nonprofit discount helps a bit, and at this time, the benefits outweigh any other issues.”
If you read closely, you’ll see everything we discussed above mentioned in a single review:
This is not a rare customer story; we have dozens of reviews that essentially speak about the same things: nonprofits need solutions that are capable of replacing inexistent funds and staff.
It may sound like a tall order, but it’s not. The technology to support them exists! See below.
From day 1, SyncApps was built to democratize access to data and the insights you can derive from it. When we started this company, integration was reserved for Fortune 500 companies that afforded to pay upwards of 6-7 figures for custom-built integrations.
That’s no longer the case. Integration is affordable for the smallest of NGOs and the least tech-savvy of employees. We made sure of that!
The SyncApps integrations like Mailchimp for Salesforce and Constant Contact for Salesforce are plug-and-play. You have over 250+ pre-built workflows and 24/7 support in your corner.
Better yet, with our new Bundle+ price tier coming out this month, you can access state-of-the-art integration and automation for as little as $49.99/month — less than the price of a dinner for two.
Sounds good? Join UNICEF and hundreds of other nonprofits using SyncApps to leverage the real power of their data. Start here and don’t forget to get in touch with us, tell us you’re running a nonprofit, and we’ll apply the lifetime nonprofit discount to your account.
