JVS Boston is a workforce development agency seeking to empower individuals from diverse communities to find employment and build careers. Partnering with clients, employers, and internal staff, JVS Boston helps underserved populations through coaching, education, and partnership to hire, develop, and retain productive workforces. For over 80 years JVS Boston has helped people secure financial independence, and over 15K individuals were empowered to build skills, advance their education, and find employment in 2022 alone.
JVS Boston clients represent over 50 languages, 100 countries, and 150 cities and neighborhoods. As the organization has scaled up, its broad spectrum of services quickly outgrew the previous suite of technology solutions used to power the mission. When CIO Jim Santiago joined the organization, he developed a technology roadmap built on the only platform capable of true transformation: Salesforce.
Supporting Partnerships and Services
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (formerly Pardot), specifically, was identified as the solution necessary to facilitate engagement across the organization, modernize prospect experience through automation, and increase internal efficiency. Led by Director of Lifecycle Information Jamie Christo Brennan, JVS Boston partnered with Cloud for Good to configure Marketing Cloud Account Engagement for the organization’s program, development, and leads teams in an effort to make a bigger impact with those JVS Boston serves.
“One of the initial reasons Marketing Cloud Account Engagement seemed exciting to the team was the capability to create audience segmentation and marketing automation,” explains Brennan. “JVS Boston has several different audience segments across program and development teams. Each segment must be catered to in distinct ways from one another, and the process of creating and maintaining unique journeys was all done manually before implementing Salesforce.”
These segments stretch across 35 unique programs designed to help individuals from all backgrounds strengthen job skills, build career pathways, and access fulfilling employment opportunities. Segments range from program interests and intake prospects for the programs team and segments, such as donors, non-donors, lapsed donors, and volunteers, for the development team.
“Our staff needed automation capable of streamlining marketing needs and lessening the load so that services could be prioritized as the organization continued to grow and expand our reach,” says Brennan. Using Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, Cloud for Good was able to create segments for each JVS Boston team through tag features on all automation dedicated to each team. This effectively partitioned segments for each department within one, singular business unit.
“To be effective on the required number of touch points per audience segment was practically impossible manually; there just aren’t enough hands to do the work,” Brennan elaborates. “Marketing automation through Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement was pursued as a way to take some of that lift off of staff.” As a result, JVS Boston client services staff no longer need to send follow-up emails that are now sent automatically, ensuring time saved can be better spent on helping more people receive the services they need.
Creating More Productive Processes
Marketing Cloud Account Engagement takes on the burden of heavy data lifting through the modernization of the prospect-to-client lifecycle. To make this possible, Cloud for Good developed acquisition journeys, campaigns, and personalized automations as prospects interact with JVS Boston through the admissions process.
This translates to a far more efficient and productive intake process that evaluates prospects intuitively, discerning which services they qualify for or need, then automatically routing them to the services, departments, or people necessary to move them through the pipeline toward employment and success. In addition to the new intake process, a refreshed newsletter template was implemented for even deeper audience segmentation and marketing automation, as well as a new preference center generating insightful segmentation lists. “Salesforce has upended most of our team’s workflows in the best possible way,” explains Brennan.
Cloud for Good-implemented solutions have positively affected three major JVS Boston processes: intake, development, and lead tracking. While Cloud for Good laid down the foundation for this success, it is the internal JVS Boston that has adapted quickly and successfully to dramatically different technology. “Everybody has been very receptive to the power and future state capabilities of Salesforce. They’re pumped to be working in Marketing Cloud Account Engagement.”
“This solution has acted as a missing puzzle piece that now unlocks a higher potential and capability to connect with audiences, raise more funds, and push further the broader JVS Boston mission of helping people secure financial independence,” says Brennan.
The Power of Partnership
“I’m most proud of the work our team has put into journeys and engagement with our constituents,” Brennan continues. In just a few short months, donor journeys made possible through the advanced, automated audience segmentation of Marketing Cloud Account Engagement have brought in thousands of dollars in donations that would have previously been left on the table. “We have actionable data to better understand what’s happening with the intake process and make better data-backed decisions.”
A testament to the JVS Boston staff’s willingness to welcome the new technology is how successful change management and user adoption have been across the organization. “Cloud for Good has given us a wealth of training and documentation on the new tool. Our partnership has allowed us to bridge gaps and have more effective communication,” reflects Brennan.
“They’re pros. They made something that seemed difficult for our team accessible, easy to grasp, and executable through how they planned our projects. I would recommend Cloud for Good to anybody,” concludes Brennan.
For more information on JVS Boston, visit jvs-boston.org.
