A Fireside Chat on FinDock and Apps to Support your Mission

By: Val Cassidy, Global Head of ISV, Salesforce.org

Recently, we announced Salesforce.org Nonprofit Cloud, the complete set of solutions to track and measure impact in real-time, raise more resources by unlocking your data, and take every constituent on a personalised journey. One key aspect of Nonprofit Cloud is its integration capabilities and our app eco-system.

Apps from the AppExchange give our nonprofit and education users the ability to extend their Salesforce – to create solutions that satisfy unique business challenges, and enable them to meet impact goals. Today, Salesforce has the largest partner ecosystem of any technology company in the world, and 71% of Salesforce customers actively use apps from the AppExchange.

Here I speak with Ivar Jansen, Area Vice President, EMEA at Salesforce.org and Bas Visser, Founder, and CEO of FinDock, a technology company responsible for FinDock – an app that launched in late 2017 that brings the power of payment processing into Salesforce.

Ivar, what trends are you seeing in the nonprofit sector today?

What we’re hearing from our nonprofit customers is that there is an increasing demand for transparency. Today, nonprofits need to justify the actions they take in every regard – from the programs they run, to how they manage their data, to how they spend supporter donations. There’s also increasing pressure from funding bodies that require accurate and timely reports from nonprofits.

Also, technology advancements in every sector mean that expectations have risen in terms of how organisations engage, communicate, and build relationships with their constituents. What we’re seeing is nonprofits that don’t have their data centralised in one place, struggle to meet these demands and expectations.

Bas, you recently launched FinDock. What challenges were you specifically trying to address for the sector?

Like Ivar mentioned, more transparency is demanded across the sector, and there are greater expectations from donors. Nonprofits are also typically less resourced than commercial organisations, so building efficiencies, streamlining processes and removing data silos can be hugely beneficial in meeting these challenges. We ultimately want to see nonprofits collect every pledge and be able to maximise the value of every donor engagement so that they can reach their mission goals.

Can you explain what FinDock is and how it enables organisations to improve donor engagement?

Sure. FinDock is a Customer Payment Management (CPM) platform built natively on Salesforce, that brings payment processing to the heart of the donor profile. Oftentimes, payment processes are supported by multiple apps, but they tend to be siloed – there could be a variety of systems in place. One of the reasons why we’re different is that we’re not replacing the customer’s current payment providers – we offer integrations with most common Banks and Payment Service Providers. Therefore FinDock users can just switch on whichever provider they need, directly inside of Salesforce.

Ivar, what benefits does this offer Salesforce.org customers?

It’s important for nonprofits to support multiple payment options – whether for donations, membership fees, events, etc. to offer convenience and ease of use for all types of supporters. FinDock enables this, and also allows users to develop new, more innovative ways to accept donations.

Having Salesforce native support for BACS & SEPA Direct Debit and enabling Gift Aid management are also key benefits for our European and the UK customers. FinDock believes payments should be personal, and this vision is closely aligned with our vision for Nonprofit Cloud.

Bas, how does FinDock help nonprofits drive more impactful campaigns?

Combining Salesforce’s data analytics tools and FinDock means that nonprofits have the ability to link their donor’s full contact information with real-time payment information and payment preferences. Nonprofits can use these insights to better understand their donor’s propensity to donate in different ways, and this can help drive campaigns and activities that are more likely to convert. We’re seeing nonprofits that are ambitious in driving more revenue to meet mission goals really leveraging those insights.

Ivar, what value do you see the ISV partner eco-system having on the nonprofit sector?

We want to make it as easy as possible for nonprofits to adopt our technology and the ISV partner eco-system and AppExchange helps us do that. The ISVs that we partner with understand the sectors we work in – they care about mission impact – and directly aim to tackle sector problems with apps that fit into the Salesforce framework. FinDock is really one of those trusted partners. They engage with the industry and they understand its pain points.

Bas, what’s next for FinDock?

At FinDock, we’re keeping an eye on local payment trends. If a new and relevant payment option comes into the market, we’ll integrate that into our FinDock product stack. Once added to our stack, our customers can immediately activate that new payment option in their Salesforce instance, unlock those capabilities for their donors and use it to build personalised payment journeys.

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To learn more about FinDock, please see their website. Make sure to check out the AppExchange Nonprofit Collection to find more apps to extend your solution, and tell us about your successes in the Power of Us Hub.