About Purdue for Life Foundation
The Purdue for Life Foundation helps people who love Purdue stay connected, get involved, and give back. It connects a global network of more than 600,000 living Boilermakers and raises private support for the university, work now driving Victories and Heroes, Purdue’s five-year, four-billion-dollar fundraising campaign. All of it runs on communication, powered by Salesforce Marketing Cloud. The Foundation’s goal was to get more out of a platform it already owned.
The Challenge
For years, Purdue for Life had tapped only a fraction of what Salesforce Marketing Cloud could do. Execution worked, but complexity had built up behind the scenes. Email was largely manual, resting on 1,000+ sender profiles tracked by spreadsheet, and processes that grew organically left the program dependent on a few people’s knowledge. A growing backlog of journey requests had no real intake or prioritization; anyone could ask for anything, and the small team was already stretched thin. Earlier implementation partners had fallen short of what the Foundation needed.
“When Purdue for Life needed additional expertise in Salesforce, Cloud for Good provided the hands-on support to keep our communications moving forward.”
Lauren Hernandez DeCrane, MBA, Senior Director of Digital Campaigns, Purdue for Life Foundation
The Work
Cloud for Good stepped in as both advisor and hands-on team. We audited the Marketing Cloud setup and identified where the setup was holding the team back. On the communications side, nearly 30 different automated outreach sequences had been requested by teams across the organization, each one a different touchpoint in the alumni and donor relationship, with no clear process for deciding what to build first. Cloud for Good helped the Foundation cut through that list and focus on the work that would move the needle most.
From this prioritized backlog, we built and tested five of the highest-value journeys hand in hand with the team. They covered the moments that matter most to a foundation: welcoming and onboarding new donors, acquiring and nurturing prospects, and re-engaging people attending an event for the first time. Two broke new ground: the Foundation’s first journey to reach constituents by SMS and its first to pair email with a printed mailer.
Subsequently, with the Foundation short-handed and hiring, our managed services kept the weekly email program running. By the Foundation’s own account, without that support it would have had to cancel close to 40 percent of its outgoing communications.
The Impact
The engagement left Purdue for Life on firmer ground. Its Marketing Cloud infrastructure was strengthened and simplified, the capability for more automated and personalized outreach was unlocked, and the team was left with a clear, prioritized backlog it can keep working through. Most immediately, the partnership kept the communications engine running through a staffing gap that could have stalled it.
“The process that we built got unclogged because of Cloud for Good.”
Lauren DeCrane, Purdue for Life Foundation
With that foundation in place, the two organizations are now scoping a more holistic and proactive phase, aimed at scaling engagement and deepening long-term donor value.
A People-First Collaboration
More than any single deliverable, what the Purdue for Life team remembers is how Cloud for Good showed up. The Foundation’s needs touched many teams, each holding a different piece of the picture, and Cloud for Good brought them into the same room and asked the questions that moved things forward.
“Cloud for Good was great at facilitating those conversations and asking those questions, specifically the deep dive into some of the technical details.”
Lauren DeCrane, Purdue for Life Foundation
Through the managed services work, that collaboration deepened. Our team sat with the Foundation week after week, building journeys together rather than handing them over, so the skills and the confidence stayed in-house. The guidance reached past the platform to how the team itself was structured to sustain the work over time.
“I’ve seen success in working with Cloud for Good’s recommendations on building my team.”
Lauren DeCrane, Purdue for Life Foundation
For a team already running at full stretch, what mattered was that Cloud for Good showed up ready to work, week after week, with the context and consistency of someone who was part of the team.
“The recommendations for you all have always been really, really good, and I think you guys all live up to it, and I appreciate it.”
Lauren DeCrane, Purdue for Life Foundation
Partner With Cloud for Good
The Purdue for Life Foundation calls itself small but mighty. It is. And the right partnership made sure the platform could keep up with it. For a foundation driving a four-billion-dollar campaign on a lean team, every decision about where to spend time and attention matters. Cloud for Good’s approach, people-first, mission-driven, and built around end-to-end delivery, is designed for exactly this: organizations with big ambitions and real constraints who need a partner that works with them, not just for them.
As a certified B Corporation and Salesforce partner dedicated to higher education and mission-driven organizations, Cloud for Good brings the expertise and the human approach that purpose-driven teams deserve. If your institution is ready to get more from Salesforce Marketing Cloud, connect with Cloud for Good.