Since 1977, Zero to Three has bettered our collective society by ensuring all babies and toddlers benefit from a strong start in life. Working to support and educate the communities that impact children’s development, including parents, healthcare professionals, and policymakers, this vital organization seeks to lay the foundation for all infants and toddlers in pursuit of a bright future. Technology has played an increasingly prevalent role in delivering Zero to Three’s mission, ultimately leading the organization to pursue an enterprise-wide Salesforce solution to help scale its efforts and unify its many centers, projects, and initiatives.
The ultimate goal for Zero to Three was to create a centralized, single source of truth for some of the organization’s major programs: Products and Innovation, Development, Policy and Advocacy, HealthySteps, and Professional Development. They kicked off their journey in 2017, partnering with Cloud for Good, and have gone on to steadily expand and empower their organization’s use of Salesforce ever since.
Adding Connection + Customizability with Nonprofit Cloud
Before implementing Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud, Zero to Three utilized several siloed technology tools such as spreadsheets and an association management system that offered little in the way of customizability or organizational harmony. “We had many siloed systems before transitioning to Nonprofit Cloud,” said Chief Technology Officer Edima Elinewinga, “our programs were using different technology tools without any overall connection.”
Zero to Three engaged with Cloud for Good to build a custom platform that could host the organization’s many different programs, create a single source of truth, track performance across programs, and track key fidelity metrics all the while. “Our focus was to streamline our business processes and provide flexibility for our different program tools that are tailored to their unique needs and functions. When our new Salesforce instance was built by Cloud for Good, we already knew strategically what we were looking to accomplish. We’ve now broken down the silos and people are able to talk and connect across departments. The system we have now is much more intuitive and user-friendly,” summarized Elinewinga.
The previous technology solutions made it difficult for Zero to Three to juggle these priorities. Data had become ununified and cluttered, thus limiting the organization’s ability to connect with its constituents and raise more funds. More efficient, integrated processes were required, and the Salesforce platform provided them with a comprehensive fundraising configuration and new association membership management. Migration to the new Salesforce instance, powered by NPSP, allowed for much-improved constituent management, including tracking and managing key performance data, sales pipeline management, revenue recognition, and Salesforce automation.
Deepening Relationships
Zero to Three helps train healthcare and childcare professionals through a partnership with the Zero to Three programs. This association management system, powered by Fonteva along with the integrations with their e-commerce solutions, and Salesforce price books made possible by the Nonprofit Cloud have helped to increase Zero to Three revenue, while simultaneously improving the member experience.
In order to move their data into their new Salesforce instance, Cloud for Good first migrated advocacy and policymaker data from Salsa and Marketing data from Act-On. Doing so gave the organization the ability to focus on their data cleanliness, performing a data dedupe prior to their migration to the new org.
The migration to the new org was powered by the Cloud for Good Migration Accelerator which allowed Cloud for Good and Zero to Three to migrate the data with proven pre-built ETL, reducing time and risk during the migration. Cloud for Good was able to continually ask Zero to Three for feedback (not just at the end of the build phase), allowing them to both familiarize themselves with the system and constantly improve specific mapping and logic.
Bettering Communication with Pardot
Additionally, Cloud for Good’s Salesforce implementation of Nonprofit Cloud helped to broaden support for donor management, grants management, and the building of a customizable platform for the HealthySteps program, onboarding practices, reporting fidelity, and integration with the email marketing system Pardot.
With Pardot, Zero to Three has been able to transform the way they communicate with their subscribers and increased their total subscriber list by 20%. They now have access to create cross-programmatic lists for special events or campaigns. A great example of this is Giving Tuesday, the one annual campaign where Zero to Three utilizes their full list of contacts in Pardot and Salesforce. Through the seamless Pardot integration, it is now an easy task to accomplish. And accomplish they did: through the combination of segmentation, dynamic content, and customized journeys, Zero to Three was able to exceed their Giving Tuesday fundraising in 2020.
The strong connection between NPSP and Pardot also gives Zero to Three access to powerful data about their subscribers, including which list they subscribe to, open rates, click-to-open ratios, bounces, click-through rates, and interactions detailing if emails were fully read or just skimmed. This data is instrumental in helping Zero to Three craft highly engaging campaigns and messages.
Expanding Programs + Commitments to Children
The HealthySteps program needed a data management system able to collect and store program administrative data on activities and larger engagement with Zero to Three. HealthySteps currently operates out of 173 sites, working closely with various healthcare providers and university hospitals across the United States helping care for over 300K children, intending to help 1M children by the year 2030. Cloud for Good’s Nonprofit Cloud implementation has helped expand this critical program through the creation of a custom site onboarding process, training attendance tracking, and complex FormAssembly and Community solutions.
“Our approach to building this technology with Cloud for Good benefitted greatly from an agile methodology,” said Quinn Kaiser, Business Analyst for HealthySteps, “instead of conducting a sprint with a big wave of developments over months and months, we were able to partner with Cloud for Good and break up the development into two-week sprints, making sure to collect feedback for improvements along the way.” With an intentional strategy for ongoing Salesforce development, Zero to Three and HealthySteps team members engaged with Cloud for Good’s Managed Services to continually enhance technology and ensure innovation didn’t conclude after the initial Salesforce implementation. “Managed Services has been a pleasure to work with. The communication back and forth and just talking through business cases has been a real treat in my job. We’re often told that whatever we can imagine, Managed Services can help make happen. Just knowing we have that in our back pocket is a really good feeling,” concluded Kaiser.
Highlights
Zero to Three as an organization remains proactive and open to new technology solutions that will help them reach their goals and assist more children. In addition to their various Salesforce integrations and implementations, Zero to Three has embraced Zoom for virtual training, Pardot for digital marketing, and Fonteva for virtual event registrations. All extensions of HealthySteps and Zero to Three’s ever-expanding technology connect back to Salesforce to form a cohesive, connected platform helping pave the way for young children nationwide.
Visit Zero to Three’s website, and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to learn more and support their mission.
