Galvin’s Favorite Functions for Nonprofits: Engagement Plans

Is your organization making “moves”?  

In the world of nonprofits, “moves management” refers to the actions an organization takes to create deeper levels of engagement among constituents. Each “move” includes activities that promote more involvement and greater commitments. Moves management focuses on mission-critical needs like attracting more volunteers, increasing donations, or improving program participation.  

But managing these activities can be tough, especially with limited staff, time, or resources. Salesforce has a fix for that. Engagement plans, a feature of the Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP), offers a simple way to manage actions for each prospect efficiently and effectively.  

What Are Engagement Plans?

An engagement plan is a set of tasks inside Salesforce that help your nonprofit connect with constituents. Consider the problems created for your organization by using spreadsheets or personal sticky notes to manage individual to-do items. Things fall through the cracks. Details get missed. Time is wasted. Engagement plans fix these challenges by automating the process of creating and assigning to-dos within Salesforce. 

Engagement plans are great for standardizing repetitive tasks or streamlining well-defined activities. Whether conducting a multi-step onboarding or sending a series of donor messages, engagement plans make the process simple by presenting tasks, timelines, and assignments in one place. No sticky notes required. 

How Do Engagement Plans Work?

Engagement plans work best when organizations have an outlined process requiring execution. Let’s say a nonprofit has a series of nurturing tasks for prospective donors looking something like this:

• Day 1 – Thank the prospect for attending the event.
• Day 8 – Send data on how the organization is making a difference in the community.
• Day 12 – Share the latest success story.
• Day 22 – Mail donation form and letter.
• Day 30 – Call donor to check in/answer questions.

The series of moves that apply to prospective donors get plugged into the engagement plan template. Tasks can be dependent or independent and follow a random order or a specific sequence.

The template then is assigned to applicable prospective donor records. The person or people responsible for that donor can see the to-dos and deadlines on their homepage task list. Each activity includes a status, as does the full engagement plan for the prospect. Instead of relying on institutional knowledge or individual to-do lists, everything is defined, automated, and executed within Salesforce.

Why Are Engagement Plans a Galvin Favorite Function?  

Here’s the top three reasons why we recommend engagement plans:  

1. They streamline tasks. Once a defined process goes into the engagement plan template, staff have a clear to-do list to work on for each associated record.
2. They drive consistency. Instead of managing to-do lists in your head or on paper, engagement plans outline the work. The process stays the same ensuring all applicable constituents receive the same communication. However, while the tasks stay the same, a high level of personalization for each constituent communication is still possible.
3. They support scalability. Defining the work and assigning deadlines keep staff focused on the tasks that matter most to the organization’s mission. Engagement plans also streamline efforts to help nonprofits work smarter, not harder. National Citizen Service, a youth nonprofit, used engagement plans to create personalized journeys and communications for its 100,000 annual constituents. A sign-up process that previously took three weeks to complete now happens online in less than 30 minutes.

Get “Engaged” With Galvin 

If your organization wants to manage its moves much better, it’s time to talk to Galvin. Our nonprofit team works with organizations of every size to transform mundane tasks into multi-step, mission-driven processes that truly make a difference. Learn more and decide how your nonprofit wants to get “moving.”  

WANT TO TALK WITH OUR CONSULTING TEAM?

We’d love to work with you on your Salesforce needs. Our team of certified Consultants can work closely with your team to close more deals. Call us at 317-297-2910 or complete the form below.