Start Fundraising Quickly With Elevate Power of Us Edition

The Power of Us Program 一 Salesforce’s technology donation program that provides 10 free licenses to eligible organizations, as well as other free and discounted products 一 has been reimagined with a focus on helping nonprofit organizations and educational institutions start fundraising quickly.

When Salesforce first launched the Power of Us Program, the goal was to empower nonprofits with access to the same platform used by Fortune 500 companies. Since then, we’ve had over 50,000 customers take advantage of these donated licenses. We’re building on that success and strengthening the program with easier customer access, more community, and additional discounted products.

Immigration Equality fights for justice and equality on behalf of immigrants who are LGBTQ or living with HIV. Pictured: Ishalaa Ortega, an Immigration Equality spokesperson and former client.

Nonprofits and educational institutions need payments and online fundraising integrated with their CRM system, providing them with a complete view of all supporters in one place. Salesforce.org Elevate* Power of Us Edition provides an integrated solution with an intuitive interface that improves staff productivity and donation pages that help streamline the donor experience. Elevate is fully integrated with the Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) to capture all of your data in your CRM. The new Power of Us Edition of Elevate provides smaller nonprofits with access to our integrated payments and fundraising solution without having to pay a set amount upfront. Nonprofit organizations and educational institutions of all sizes can accelerate the pace of their fundraising with Elevate.

The new edition of Elevate allows customers to fundraise with no upfront costs and a simple fee of 3% of the donation amount, unless the donor chooses to offset the transaction costs. Elevate leverages Stripe to process payments. Stripe delivers great value to nonprofits with discounted pricing that includes a card updater to automatically update card account details for recurring donors, which helps minimize declines of recurring gifts, and technology that works behind the scenes to help prevent online fraud.

The Power of Us Program is now available via a self-service portal, so customers can sign up for Elevate and their first 10 Salesforce subscriptions online. To help customers get started quickly with Elevate, new modules in our Trailhead training program and discounted services are now available.

Since implementing Elevate last year, Immigration Equality’s fundraising team has been able to easily launch online campaigns and respond quickly to current events with gift data flowing directly into NPSP. Because Elevate enables setting up multiple Giving Pages, each with customized ask ladders, the organization can better segment their communications and make the right ask of each donor. Immigration Equality now has better visibility into its donors’ journeys and how informed those donors are about the issues and policies. The fundraising team now has much more capability with campaigns as well. It can customize campaigns and quickly access reliable information around a campaign’s ROI.

Spark*SF Public Schools implemented Elevate to support a surge in online giving during COVID-19, as community members gave to support their free meals program and efforts to meet students’ technology needs. Over a few short months, Spark* went from a handful of online donations to more than 1,500. The move to Elevate has enabled Spark* to build a recurring donor program and streamline the donation process, all while saving the organization five to 10 hours per month and $5,000 annually on outside contractors.

Spark* SF Public Schools focuses on closing the opportunity and technology gaps in San Francisco’s public schools, provides greater access to computer science education, provides career pathways for high school students, and prepares students to thrive.

“The ability to accept recurring donations has been extremely helpful for us in building a steady, long-term base of supporters and ultimately increasing our revenue over time,” says Jena Hayashi, Senior Manager of Strategic Partnerships & Communications for Spark*.

Customers can use the Donor Cover feature in Elevate to help cover the cost of Elevate. Nonprofits can add Donor Cover to Giving Pages to enable their supporters to help offset the Elevate and payment processing fees. Customers can set this to any percentage they would like and add messaging to explain what the extra amount is used for, such as “I would like to cover the processing fee by adding to my donation.” Elevate calculates the amount based on the percentage and the selected donation amount. If the donor checks the box to cover fees, her donation is increased by that percentage. Many nonprofits see over half of donors opting to cover fees, and LA Family Housing has seen 63% of donors cover fees since implementing Elevate.

Learn more about Elevate by checking out the Elevate demo.

Note: The Power of Us Edition of Elevate is recommended for customers who process up to $165,000 annually and use Stripe. Customers who process higher volumes, or want to use payment gateways other than Stripe, can continue to use Elevate Advanced Edition. Elevate does not yet support switching between the two editions, so customers should select the edition that will work for them today and in the near future.

*Elevate is available to United States-based organizations processing payments in U.S. dollars. Customers outside of the U.S. have the power of the Salesforce ecosystem.

About the Author

Lori Borg
Sr. Product Marketing Manager for Elevate at Salesforce.org

Lori leads product marketing for Salesforce.org Elevate, Salesforce’s fundraising suite for nonprofit and educational institutions, which includes Salesforce.org Payment Services and Giving Pages. Lori has an extensive nonprofit background having served as executive director, board member, and volunteer fundraiser.

She currently serves on the board of ArtReach, a nonprofit that takes visual art to under-served children in San Diego. She has nearly 10 years of nonprofit payments expertise and has presented at nonprofit conferences and webinars on payments, data hygiene, and sustaining donor programs. Lori earned her MBA at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.