Putting the Power of Creativity to Work for Community

Since 1971, nonprofit Allied Arts has raised more than $90 million to support arts and cultural groups in central Oklahoma. The organization, however, does more than simply raise money: it advocates for the arts, it promotes arts education, and it raises the profile of arts awareness throughout a state of more than 4 million people.

In order to maintain that level of community engagement, technical and organizational support is key. Which means that data management for that support is paramount.

Despite investing in a number of products to manage their fundraising efforts and workplace giving campaigns, Allied Arts team members were still spending unnecessary hours coping with an inefficient CRM system. A lack of integrations meant that they were manually entering data from online giving resources into their CRM — and exporting data, to create reports in Excel.

To address that problem, Allied Arts was eager to learn more about shifting toward automated operations; it especially needed a better way to manage workplace giving initiatives such as “on-the-spot” donations, employer matching programs, payroll deductions, and United Way campaigns.

That’s when Allied Arts decided to speak with Salesforce implementation partner Nimbus Tech. Salesforce consultants at Nimbus Tech were able to quickly offer a number of solutions, all of which allowed Allied Arts to maintain its focus on value and efficiency.

The Salesforce tools Nimbus Tech suggested include:

• Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) for custom donation summary roll-ups and campaign reports
• Marketing Cloud Account Engagement for a robust marketing suite
• Integration with Mobile Cause (aka GiveSmart) to sync online donation data and reduce processing times
• Conga Composer integration to generate gift acknowledgment and tax receipt documents

It’s become a win-win partnership that continues to this day, with Nimbus Tech routinely providing Allied Arts with monthly managed services as they reach out on an as-needed basis for support assistance.

Robert Schultheis, finance director at Allied Arts, recalls one crucial moment when Nimbus Tech specialists were especially helpful. “We had a teammate out on parental leave during a really critical time for our conversion,” he says. “Nimbus Tech continued their role of really helping put out the fires for us and helped us get the reporting.” The assistance Nimbus provides, Schultheis says, was “an absolute godsend to us.”

Nimbus Tech considers the relationship an honor and a pleasure. “Their fundraising campaigns help keep art programs alive throughout the state of Oklahoma,” says Josh Valentine, lead project consultant.

Beyond that, Valentine adds, his team continues to ensure that the Allied Arts vision of a workflow is translated to the Salesforce world. “I've loved the process of helping them go from spreadsheets to a fully developed Salesforce org!”

To learn more about how Nimbus Tech can help your own organization, visit www.nimbustech.com.

To learn more about Allied Arts or donate to their mission, visit www.alliedartsokc.com.

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Written by guest writer, Bill Furbee.