Several years ago when I was working at a nonprofit, I was sitting in our weekly staff meeting and the Executive Director announced that the development team was going to be implementing something called “moves management.” At the time, I had no idea what this was.
I came to learn that the process of moves management, which is becoming more and more popular among nonprofits, is a framework to help move a prospective donor through the stages from cultivation to solicitation. Per wikipedia, “Moves are the actions an organization takes to bring in donors, establish relationships, and renew contributions.” A senior development officer from Cornell University developed the concept and described it as “Changing people’s attitudes so they want to give.”
I thought the idea was incredibly novel, and still do. The focus of moves management is not on the money – the donation. It’s on the person – the prospective donor. Cultivating the relationship with the individual, and not on the amount they are going to give to your organization, is where I soon started to see success with this theory.
While moves management is becoming increasingly popular in the nonprofit sector, there needs to be a system to plan, track, and report on your moves. Without having a clear plan for each move you want to make with your prospect, and reminders around each move, your attempt at moves management will likely be a flop. This is where your Salesforce database can help!
You can create your moves management process directly within Salesforce and plan all of your phone calls, emails, meetings, events, and follow up as tasks with reminders. You can take advantage of time-based workflow rules or check out apps like Action Plans to help you automate your moves management process. Action Plans allows you to create reusable task templates that can be used to plan all of your moves for each prospect. If you plan to send an email the day after a meeting with a prospect and then follow up one week later with a phone call, you can create this task template and continue utilizing it with each new prospect in your pipeline. You can set reminders for these tasks to ensure the ball never gets dropped with any individual.
You may also want to consider syncing your Outlook or Google calendars with Salesforce so you can plan your meetings in Salesforce and have them appear on your calendar. (There are an abundance of apps that allow you to connect Salesforce and Google and a free add-in called Salesforce for Outlook.) Similarly, if you are planning or updating meetings in your Outlook or Google calendar, it can sync with Salesforce so you’ll always have a full picture of all of the “moves” you are making with each prospect.
I’m sure we all have a memory of coming back into the office after a donor meeting, pulling out pages and pages of barely legible notes on coffee-stained notebook paper, and trying to figure out what the follow up items are. (I have all too many memories like this.) Again, here comes your Salesforce database to the rescue!
While you or your development staff are out meeting with prospects and making moves, you should consider utilizing the Salesforce1 mobile app to update records or take notes during the meeting. Since Salesforce is 100 percent cloud based, all of your data can be accessed from any (internet enabled) location or mobile device with Salesforce1. This way you won’t need to worry about taking up more time pouring through notes and you can even create new tasks or meetings directly within Salesforce1 so there is no need to worry about forgetting about what needs to happen next.
Lastly, you’ll want to report on the progress of your moves management program and makes changes where needed. Standard Salesforce reporting can work in many cases although if your reporting needs are more complex you can consider an app such as Apsona Multi-Step Reporting.
Have you successfully implemented a moves management process in Salesforce? If so, please share your experience with us in the comments.
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