Automate donor generation and retention activities in Non-Profit Organizations

Automate donor generation and retention activities in Non-Profit Organizations

Edition: Paid editions | Industry: NGOs or Non-Profit Organizations | Features: Webforms, Workflow Rules, Reports and Dashboards

The Requirement

Second Life is an NGO that offers support in multiple service categories that include healthcare, child welfare, retirement homes, rural development, and education. 
They have several ways to recruit donors to contribute to their work in these categories, including their website, phone calls, and spreadsheets. They are looking for effective ways to recruit and retain donors for their organizations. Help them with the following requirements in Zoho CRM:
  1. Set up a way to capture donor details via their website. Set up an automated acknowledgement email whenever a new contributing donor enters CRM.
  2. Set up automated reminder emails to past donors on the anniversary of their donation to encourage them to continue giving.
  3. Generate reports to gain insight into their top donors for each service category.

Requirement—Solution Mapping

  1. Set up a way to capture donor details via their website:
    Solution — Webforms
  2. Set up an automated acknowledgement email whenever a new contributing donor enters CRM:
    Solution — Workflow rules and email templates
  3. Set up automated reminder emails to past donors on the anniversary of their donation to encourage them to continue giving:
    Solution — Workflow rules based on a date/time
  4. Generate reports to gain insight into their top donors for each service category 
    Solution — Reports and dashboards

Setting up webforms to capture donor details from their website 

Second Life sources donors from their website as one of their main donor generation points. Once a webform created in Zoho CRM is published on the website, all enquiries submitted via this form will be added to CRM and Second Life can follow up with these donors from CRM.

A webform in Zoho CRM can be created using the fields available for the particular module. To create a webform:
  1. Go to Setup > Developer Space > Webform.
  2. Create a New Form for the Zero Donors module. (Zero Donors are people who are likely to contribute to your NGO, but have not yet made their first donation. They could be people that you sourced from awareness campaigns, campus visits, your website, or referrals from current donors).
  3. Drag and drop the required fields in the webform editor:
    1. First name
    2. Last name
    3. Email
    4. Phone
    5. Describe your enquiry
    6. Choose which causes you are willing to contribute towards

      Note: These fields must first be available in the Zero Donors module. You need to create these fields using the module builder and customize the module before you create the form. Then when you create a webform, these fields are available to be used in the form.
  4. Specify a landing page URL, form URL, and assignment rules as applicable.
    1. Form URL: Where the form will be published.
    2. Landing page URL: Where the user will be redirected to once they have submitted the form.
    3. Assignment rules: How these entries will be distributed among CRM users.
  5. Once you have specified the form details, you can proceed to the next step where you will get the source code.
  6. Copy this code and publish it on the required web page on your site.
  7. Once the form is live, any entries submitted via the form will now be added directly to Zoho CRM in the selected module and layout.

Setting up an automated acknowledgement email whenever a new contributing donor enters CRM

You can use workflow rules in Zoho CRM to automate emails.


To create a workflow rule:
  1. Go to Setup > Automation > Workflow Rules.
  2. Create a New Rule.
  3. Choose the Current Donors module.
  4. Specify the Rule Trigger to specify when this workflow rule should be triggered.
    For this scenario, choose Record Action and then Create.
  5. Specify a condition, if applicable. In this case, no conditions are needed.
    The rule applies to any new contributing donor.
  6. Specify the automated action as Instant Action > Email Alert.
  7. In the Email Alert Settings, choose the recipient as Current Donor Email, and select the email template relevant for this scenario.

    You must have already created the email template.To create a new template, go to Customization > Templates > Email Template.
    You can either write your own email or modify one of the existing templates in the gallery to suit your context.
  8. Choose the appropriate template and associate it with the rule.
  9. Save the rule.
Now any new donor who enters the CRM system will automatically receive a common acknowledgement email thanking them for their involvement with the NGO.

Setting up automated reminder emails for donor retention

You need to take continuous efforts to engage with your donors for retaining them with your organisation. Say Second Life wants to send emails to past donors on the anniversary of their donation, to encourage them to continue giving. They can automate this particular email. You will need to make sure to create the rule based on a date/time field, so it can be sent on their contribution anniversary. This date will vary for each donor, so the rule must be set up accordingly.

To create the workflow rule:
  1. Go to Setup > Automation > Workflow Rules.
  2. Create a New Rule.
  3. Choose the Funds module.
  4. Specify the Rule Trigger to specify when this workflow rule should be triggered.
    For this scenario, choose On a Date/Time and then choose the required donation date to calculate the donation anniversary from.
  5. Specify a condition, if applicable. In this case, no conditions are needed. The rule applies to any new contributing donor.
  6. Specify the automated action as Instant Action and then Email Alert.
  7. In the Email Alert Settings, choose the recipient as Current Donor Email, and select the email template relevant to this scenario. You must have already created an email template. To create a new template, go to Customization > Templates > Email Template. You can either write your own email or modify one of the existing templates in the gallery to suit your context.

  8. Choose the appropriate template and associate it with the rule.
  9. Save the rule.

Generating reports and dashboards to gain insight into top donors for each service category

Zoho CRM has a set of predefined reports such as top donors, prospects by source, and best funds by month. In addition to these standard reports, a user can create a report from scratch using whatever parameters they want. The parameters to use to generate a report depend on what insight they want to draw. Life Drops wants to look at the top donors for each service category. So a report can be created with service category as a filter and represented on a dashboard as seen below.




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