How Nonprofits Use Salesforce to Improve Donor Retention and Engagement
1. Engage Beyond the Gift
Salesforce reports that nearly 7 in 10 donors expect digital access to impact dashboards, and only 31% of nonprofits currently offer them, yet 86% of those saw dashboards significantly boost trust and engagement.
Use Nonprofit Cloud to build a donor-facing dashboard:
Enable Impact Engagement Reports.
Embed summaries in Experience Cloud or community portals.
Automate notifications with Flow to alert donors to new updates.
2. Segment Donors Using RFM Scores
Why it works: Salesforce Release Notes highlight new tools for generating RFM scores (Recency, Frequency, Monetary), a proven method to identify at-risk donors.
Use Nonprofit Cloud’s built-in fields to calculate RFM.
Build targeted List Views and Campaigns for:
Lapsed donors: last gift > 24 months ago
High-frequency donors: gifts ≥ 3/year
Apply Einstein Next Best Action to trigger renewal or upgrade appeals.
3. Build a Moves Management Framework
Why it’s critical: Salesforce’s Moves Management guide emphasizes tracking donor “moves” like event participation, volunteering, and email engagement to steer progression from new to sustained supporters.
Map your donor lifecycle stages (Awareness → Gift → Stewardship).
Create Path layouts in Salesforce for each stage.
Use Flow or Einstein Next Best Action to recommend the next touchpoint automatically.
4. Leverage AI to Predict & Act
Why AI accelerates results: Salesforce showcases how Einstein Prediction Builder + Next Best Action helps nonprofits prioritize high-value donors and automate communication channels, powering smarter, automated outreach.
Build an Einstein Prediction Model for gift probability.
Use Einstein Next Best Action to trigger:
Email for high-likelihood donors
Phone or thank-you task for others
Incorporate these prompts into Campaigns or Opportunities.
5. Deepen Donor Trust with Transparency
Why transparency matters: With declining trust in institutions (nearly 60% globally), offering a clear, measurable impact builds donor loyalty
Develop an Impact Summary Email Campaign via Marketing Cloud.
Send milestone reports (e.g., “You funded 10 hours of dialysis”).
Use Flow to automate Drip Campaigns based on donation amounts.
The formula is simple: track, score, predict, personalize, and report. When implemented through Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud and Einstein tools, nonprofits don't just engage smarter, they retain more donors and scale their mission.
Equals 11 helped the National Kidney Foundation turn predictive insights into real-time action, using Einstein Prediction Builder and Next Best Action to guide personalized donor outreach across teams.
Want to see exactly how it was done? → Grab the full NKF case study, no emails required.
