How Salesforce is Helping the CDC Foundation Fight COVID-19

The CDC Foundation

Now is the time for our collective communities and organizations to band together. We find ourselves practicing social distancing on an individual basis and collectively shuttering the physical spaces we frequent in an attempt to flatten the curve of COVID-19’s spread. Let this trying time serve as a reminder that we are all connected more than ever before, and with that heightened connection comes the great potential to do more good for one another.

In January, the CDC Foundation activated its Emergency Response Fund to provide support for state and local health departments and support the global response in combatting COVID-19. In less than 3 months, donations from individuals, philanthropies, and corporations have totaled $30M to be used as direct support in CDC’s relief efforts during this rapidly changing health emergency. When the CDC Foundation first approached Cloud for Good to assist with their Salesforce implementation in 2018, no one involved could have foreseen just how critical these new services would prove to be in combating a pandemic.

“Partnering with Cloud for Good has greatly benefited the CDC Foundation’s ability to raise funds and tackle the coronavirus outbreak.  Through the Salesforce implementation provided by Cloud for Good, we are now able to allocate emergency funds with a level of efficiency and expediency simply not possible before this project.” – Monique S. Patrick, Chief Operating Officer

Their Journey to Salesforce

The CDC Foundation came to Cloud for Good in search of Salesforce implementation services that would better track and manage their donors, donations, and campaigns while allowing them to use sophisticated reports and dashboards to understand their fundraising effort and take action. In addition to the switch to Salesforce, the organization made it a priority to migrate their current data over from The Raiser’s Edge in order to improve their information sharing within the organization and preserve the organization’s knowledge. The system used previously by the CDC Foundation wasn’t cloud-based and was simply far too outdated for such a forward-thinking organization. Without the ability to access their system remotely or interface with other platforms, the CDC Foundation was in critical need of a system that could provide a true pulse on past, present, and future business.

With so many constituents to account for, ranging from individual donors to large corporate investors, a simplified approach to storing all contact and interaction data in one, unified place was paramount. The enhanced constituent management made possible through Cloud for Good’s Salesforce solutions greatly improved the CDC Foundation’s correspondence tracking, allowing them to link all their communications (emails, phone calls, bulk email campaigns, and direct mailings) to each individual contact records for streamlined tracking and segmentation. Prior to these improvements, hard copies of proposals, agreements, project handoff materials, and donor acknowledgment letters would be routed around their office in color-coded folders requiring reviewers and extensive tracking.

“It has been a tremendous advantage to be able to see the funds raised in real-time and have donor information and activity at our fingertips. It has helped us to prioritize, saving time and resources, as well as being able to quickly allocate funding to the areas most in need during an emergency response.” – Laura Croft, Vice President for Advancement

A Heightened Purpose

Organizations as important as the CDC Foundation simply can’t afford to worry about their donation management system. For this reason, it was made a priority to configure the foundation’s organizational business processes with Salesforce’s Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP). Through NPSP, a full 360-degree view of the people and organizations supporting the foundation was achieved, enabling the CDC Foundation to better understand the affiliations and automation inherent to donor relationships, as well as capture the full range of fundraising activities across the entire organization. This sort of high-level view, providing a big picture of the CDC Foundation’s organizational efforts, became absolutely critical in the response to this global health event.

Through the broadened perspective provided by Salesforce’s NPSP configurations, the CDC Foundation can now establish targeted Engagement Plans: sets of coordinated tasks used to manage constituent engagements. These engagements help to advance relationships with donors and call on a justifiably concerned constituent base to help their loved ones, communities, and all those threatened by COVID-19. Communication is so key in times of crisis, with the importance intensified by the need to keep our social distance from one another.

In the time that has passed following Cloud for Good’s Salesforce implementation, the CDC Foundation has completed and executed over 1,200 contracts through their new system. Greater access to up-to-date information that is integrated across back-office systems has resulted in better decision-making, helping the foundation to save and improve more lives, faster.

“We went from a donor database of 42,000 donors to over 150,000 in just a few months, and individual giving increased by 2,403%, all tracked through Salesforce. We needed this fully-integrated CRM system to handle that.” – Dr. Judy Monroe, President and CEO

Doing Our Part

With the Salesforce solutions implemented by Cloud for Good, the CDC Foundation was able to streamline the process of handing off raised funds to designated programs. For example, during the height of the recent Zika virus outbreak in the mid-2010s, the CDC Foundation set up a special mosquito net program benefitting communities in West Africa to stave off the disease. Last week the CDC Foundation implemented a crowdfunding campaign titled “All of Us: Combat Coronavirus” acting as a direct-line program to funnel all fundraising toward today’s most important fight. This emergency campaign comes equipped with its own dedicated website, introductory video, and donation form. $30M has been raised in support of the CDC Foundation’s Emergency Response Fund, including $500K from Salesforce itself, along with their pledge to match all donations from Salesforce employees. While that figure is astounding, continued support is urgently needed to address the rapidly evolving nature of this outbreak.

As an answer to that call, Cloud for Good has created its own campaign for our employees, partners, customers, and friends to help donate. The CDC Foundation is seeking to raise hundreds of millions of dollars needed in resources to help mitigate the pandemic’s presence and strengthen preparedness. These funds will help to provide additional support for lab testing, strengthen state and local response capacity, support global activities, logistics, communications, data system integrations, and so much more. While government support is essential in tackling health threats, flexible philanthropic and private sector support is critical, to be used alongside government funding, to address the increasingly global needs inherent to the COVID-19 response.

Join the many individuals, organizations, corporations, and philanthropies that have stepped forward to support response efforts and make a difference in the face of global uncertainty:

Donate Now to Help Fight Coronavirus.