Fíonta and Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) worked closely beginning in late 2019 and through 2020 to migrate the organization from a legacy fundraising platform to Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) and integrate Pardot for marketing automation and donor engagement. Senior Director of Development and Planned Giving at OMRF, Sonny Wilkinson sat down with Fíonta project manager, Lawson Condrey, and senior Salesforce consultant, Jordan Berger for a retrospective chat about choosing a Salesforce partner, the discovery process, customizing NPSP, and the benefits of Salesforce and Pardot for fundraising.
Transcript
Lawson Condrey:
Let’s chat about our project. I’m Lawson Condrey. I am the project manager at Fionta based here in Portland, Maine. My role on the project was primarily managing the team, managing resources, scope, budget, timeline, that sort of thing. Jordan, do you want to go next?
Jordan Berger:
Thanks, Lawson. Yeah. My name is Jordan Berger. I’m a senior consultant here at Fionta. I live in Eagleville, New York, up in Upstate New York. My role in the OMRF project was to act as the technical lead. So my job is to ensure or was to ensure that the technical aspects of the project were built to spec and delivered on time.
Sonny Wilkinson:
Sonny Wilkinson with the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, senior director of development. It was my wise idea to move us to Salesforce and go through that and get to work with Fionta, these two and others to get our instance up and running and going.
Lawson Condrey:
Sonny, can you tell us a little bit about your role and then also a little bit about what OMRF does and what their mission is?
Sonny Wilkinson:
So, I’m the senior director of development at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. My role there is fundraising. It’s working on planned giving. It’s also managing and overseeing our team that does our gift entry and runs our database day to day. And so, our main objective at our jobs is to support our scientists and all the work they do in their labs, which is basic biomedical research in areas, like cardiovascular disease and cancer, Alzheimer’s, and what I think everybody will eventually care out is anything that has to do with aging. We have a whole group that works on that. So we have about 50 different labs with scientists from all over the world right here in Oklahoma City who are leading the way in those areas and in autoimmune diseases. So, it’s a wonderful place to work. It’s an inspirational place to work. As a non-scientist, it’s just a thrill to be able to connect our donors and people in the community with this just amazing research that they do every day.
Lawson Condrey:
Can you talk about how you chose Fionta?
Sonny Wilkinson:
That was a long road to get there. We started a couple of years ago and really determined that our current database was phasing out. It was aging. It was old. It just wasn’t a very accessible database for people on the development team who needed reports and a better view of our donors. As we were going out and trying to do major campaigns and do more, we were recognizing that it was taking weeks or longer sometimes to get the reports we needed or to just get the information to call and say thank you to a donor. So, as the world keeps evolving, things happen a lot quicker, we knew we needed keep up with that.
Sonny Wilkinson:
So, we began researching databases. Pretty early on, it became clear that Salesforce was the direction we needed to go with our database, not only just to capture donor information, but to also communicate back and integrate marketing into that and have this one solution that could just really do so much for us and help us. So, as we started to turn down that Salesforce road and really explore that, we also recognized our expertise was not in Salesforce. It was not in building out a database. It was not going to be in migrating things or the ongoing maintenance of that. So we needed help and we needed support with that. We began interviewing several different companies, Fionta being one of them, to see how they would work with us, how they could help us and get us to the point that we would launch Salesforce internally, but also important to us, too, was a relationship that we could carry forward after that point too.
Jordan Berger:
For us, with OMRF, Sonny, you represent the development team at large. When we go into an initiative of the scope of the project that we did with you guys, we understand that while you represent the development team, there are definitely discrete areas within your team that will going to be using Salesforce for a variety of different reasons and ways. So the way we built the discovery sessions is to work with you and with Brent and your team to identify various stakeholders, your whole different roles at OMRF and interview them to understand what the current processes are.
Jordan Berger:
You mentioned the fact that you’re moving from an old antiquated database, to understand the pain points that come with that and really to have a conversation, because it’s one thing to read an RFI or a proposal and hear what your pain points are, but there’s a whole nother different story when we get to sit in a virtual room together and really hear the desires, the hopes, the dreams, the pain points that you guys currently have and use those conversations to develop a set of requirements that we then go and build against in order to create a solution that’s going to work for you guys.
Sonny Wilkinson:
It was really important to us that we find a partner that understood us, that knew our situation and knew where we were trying to get. That doesn’t mean that you knew our legacy database. You guys really didn’t, not many people did, but that turned out not being important, because what’s important is you listened and you understood our goals and where we needed to go. So many other partners that we interviewed really would just lay out a timeline and say, “Here’s your go-live date. This is what we’re going to do. We need you to get us these things by this day.” I’m sure that they would have built it out how we needed it, but it was a really big sense early on.
Sonny Wilkinson:
This actually was something that our Salesforce salesperson advised us on, too, about finding a partner was find somebody you’re comfortable with. They all have their specialties and do different stuff, but really that relationship is going to be key with you guys to helping you get to where you need to go. You were the ones that really clearly understood that from the get-go with us and wanted to get us live on Salesforce and launched, but it was more than that. It was helping us meet our objectives to meet more donors and understand our donors. And so, you guys really worked with us to do that, and we appreciate it a ton. I don’t think we’d be sitting here together if you guys didn’t have that philosophy.
Lawson Condrey:
Part of our process and our thinking around that, Sonny, is we don’t think of you all as a customer, we think of you all as a partner or a client. There’s a difference between how you approach someone who’s a customer versus who’s a partner. And so, we want to work with you in finding those solutions. It’s not just giving you what you want or what you’re saying that you want. It’s us asking questions and poking holes and trying to figure out where the problems actually are, so we can deliver the right solutions for you.
Jordan Berger:
As we’ve had conversations post-go live, we’ve identified areas with which the requirements as you guys needed them back then don’t necessarily align with how you want to do business. That’s one of the things that when you’re coming from an antiquated or a legacy system, we need to make sure that the system we’re building, it fits in terms of your next logical step from legacy to future, but also looking forward and looking at how we can scale the solution to make it successfully for you long term. So I know that there’s some growing pains that you’ve had currently using the system that we’re working with you guys now to address, but that comes with coming so far in such a short period of time.
Sonny Wilkinson:
It’s remarkable to me to think we were going to do this, but really, well, to go live at the time we did in the middle of a pandemic and the shift that the OMRF had to take, I don’t know about you guys. I mean, we would have a Zoom meeting once a week and it might’ve been with you. Now, this is all we do. We shifted to working from home, but you guys helped with that. I mean, you helped us stay on track and understood what was going on and kept us going so we could do this. To me, that was really important that that momentum just didn’t stop. You just did it in a way that was just brought our whole team along too, frankly.
Sonny Wilkinson:
I mean, we were a bigger team with different departments represented as we were going to do this and you all had to work with all of us to get there. I don’t think we could have picked a more interesting time to transition databases and go live as we’re all… Literally, the whole team was working from home when we did this. It’s a testament we were able to do that because of your expertise and your willingness to work with us and help us out.
Lawson Condrey:
Fortunately, half of us are based in D.C. and half of us are scattered throughout the country, so the idea of working remotely was already set in in Fionta’s business model. We’re fortunate, I guess, in a way to already comfortable working remotely and be in these tiny boxes all the time.
Sonny Wilkinson:
It was not a comfortable spot for us, but we got there. This project really showed us the way of how to get there and to do that. So, it’s just the word partner. I mean, I think you guys are right on that. It’s not a company, it’s a partner. The other thing we were looking for, too, as we did this, I think I might’ve said it earlier, we knew this wasn’t going to be a single phase type of thing. It was remarkable that some of these other companies just didn’t really want to talk about that, but I feel early on, even as you guys, we were talking about, “Okay. Once we go live, what does this look like and how are we…”
Sonny Wilkinson:
Jordan, I’ve gotten to know you. You’ve worked on our database. You know it better than anybody, including everybody at OMRF. I don’t want to lose that relationship, because you’re helping us now. We’ve gone live and we still have questions, and you guys knew it. You also told us early on, “Hey, just let’s do this because as you understand the system and learn it more, you’re going to have more questions.” Sure enough, we do.
Jordan Berger:
But I mean, I would also add from my experience with you guys, Sonny, and with other clients, you, yourself, have really taken ownership of the solution and your ability to learn Salesforce and your willingness to go out and test things, or do your research on your own, that’s, to me, the sign of a successful client, is someone who goes out on a limb in terms of learning new technology, but also pushing me and the team to really look at solutions more holistically and say, “What do you think about this other solution that I’ve read about?” Your ability to do that, as well as Josh and Brent, really leading the charge in terms of some of the more technical aspects of the project, really set Fionta up for success in this project as well.
Sonny Wilkinson:
Jordan, it’s really easy to go try things and break them in the system when you know you got to fall back position of people who know the system and can help bail you out. So we love to try new things now and experiment and see where we can take this and go. But I think our confidence level might be a little self-overinflated sometimes, but I mean, that’s honestly because we know you guys are a short meeting away from really understanding what we’re trying to do and help us through it. Sometimes it’s not you necessarily going in and fixing it, right? It’s just talking through how it was set up or what the intention is, and we can just talk through it and figure it out, which is a huge help.
Lawson Condrey:
I think in general, we’re working with the organization to get their requirements and having these discovery sessions, the idea is to tease out, again, not just what your wants or what your organization wants, but what problem are we trying to solve, or what is the business process that needs improving? And so, some of these conversations can be painful or difficult to draw out what exactly the needs are. But I think obviously you all are an amenable group of people and our relationship was really positive, so it was easy to have those honest conversations.
Jordan Berger:
We really sit down in blocks of time with each individual group or with multiple groups in one session, depending on the makeup of the client and the project. We come with questions. We’ve done our research. We understand the needs and the requirements as it relates to the RFP and the proposal process in our initial conversations, but the goal is really to uncover the needs and requirements that are going to be basically the building blocks of the solution that we build. So it’s asking pointed questions, it’s asking for clarification in RFP requirements, and it’s really having a conversation around what the future state is going to look like, as well as, as Lawson mentioned, the current pain points in the day-to-day jobs of the folks we’re talking to.
Sonny Wilkinson:
It was organized and done well that helped us see it, because I don’t think we could have known to ask some of those questions of what we were doing. Even what our processes were internally were sometimes a mystery, I think even to the team that was doing them. It’s the old, “I’ve never thought about it, but it works.” Well, my favorite question, which I think people sometimes get tired of is why, but asking that question isn’t the easiest question sometimes. It’s not pain-free. So to say discovery was a quick and easy process, I don’t want to say that out there, because it could be painful at some points on our end, just because we really have to address some internal structure and process to get to where we wanted to go.
Sonny Wilkinson:
And so, because you guys asked us those questions, it really cause us to stop and think, “Okay. We’re going to get a database. We’re going to be able to do these things, but internally, our staff and everybody’s going to have to work towards these with us.” And so, we were very intentional even before we met you guys, as we knew we were going to set out on this road to really start breaking down silos, bringing everybody together. I don’t know if you guys know this. I mean, the team that works on this and still meets once a month, it’s called the funding science team, and that’s IT, fundraising, marketing, data entry, accounting. It’s all these groups that try to do this. And so, we had to bring them along us.
Sonny Wilkinson:
It was a true team effort to get there. Now, I hear more and more that we love Salesforce and what it’s doing for us, but it was really important, because not one person there knows the whole process and what it is. So you guys helped extract that out and get it. It’s fun as that was at some points, I’m sure for you guys.
Lawson Condrey:
It’s always fun for us. Maybe, Sonny, can you talk about the transition from requirements gathering and the discovery to the more iterative approach that we took with the actual build and configuration?
Sonny Wilkinson:
So I was really excited to get past the discovery point because I love to just see what we’re going to do and how’s this going to work and that end process. That’s how I think. There’s another rabbit in the room I want to go follow and that got me there. So once we were able to address what we wanted and what we needed, going through this iterative process and things sprints with you guys and just really focusing on something and saying, “Here’s our objectives and goals and how we’re going to get there.” Right? I think that helped us break down this big project and understand it. I think it allowed you guys to dive in a little bit deeper with us.
Sonny Wilkinson:
Also, at that point, I think this is a time-consuming project to do something like this. Once we break it down to those bite-sized pieces, I think it also omits… There were parts of the team that didn’t need to totally be there for everything because it just didn’t concern them, and then there were other… I think that helps spread it out for us, too, internally to keep fundraising and doing our marketing functions and keeping that all going instead of 100% all the time, this is what we’re going to focus on. So, it really was a good flow for us. Again, you guys understood what our cadence needed to be, and you adjusted that again when the world slowed down there. So you understand our cadence. You walked us through that. That’s huge. That’s really helpful.
Lawson Condrey:
The other part of our guiding philosophy as we transition from discovery into a build or a configuration is always making sure whatever is prioritized. And so, we’re always concerned, I think, with overemphasizing something or deemphasizing something, or making sure that we’re prioritizing the exact piece or the exact task that you guys want us to be working on, because that changes and we’re able to flex and bend based on what those priorities are.
Sonny Wilkinson:
I’m going to agree. I mean, those changed, too, as we went along, didn’t they?
Jordan Berger:
That’s for sure. I think what helped me really, we have our blueprint from requirements gathering into the build phase, like Lawson is saying, but as things shifted in priority or we needed to clarify and go and pivot to a different direction, it was the ability to get with you guys quickly. Working on your core team with Josh, Brent and yourself, it really allowed us to make decisions quickly, because we had all of those stakeholders in the room and getting you guys together on the phone quickly to make a quick decision really added value and sped up the process for us as well.
Sonny Wilkinson:
If we didn’t have that team built internally and the relationships that we really worked hard to build, too, internally, that would have gone as well. I can’t stress out enough that that was so key to being able to do that, because it felt like for a while there, it was like coffee in the mornings with you guys, because there was always something we needed to meet and just talk about real quick. So Jordan, you can go do what you love to do, which was… It was reassuring to us too, because you guys weren’t behind some curtain building this and then we’re just going to show up and say, “Take it.” That really as we worked through those sessions and got closer to the go live date, I was amazed. You guys had us on a bike with training wheels and took the training wheels off as we were riding and we were just off riding and you guys were just kind of like, “Hey, look what you’re doing.” And then we came back and you put some more on those tires. But I mean, you guys really helped. It was such a smooth transition.
Lawson Condrey:
Enabling your team to be successful was a natural part of our process. It isn’t always as natural. So I think that goes back to our relationship and how well we’ve worked together.
Jordan Berger:
Do you want to talk through the go-live process? Because with you guys, and you can speak more to this, you had your existing system up and running, while you also had Salesforce up and running. Do you want to speak to the mechanics around running two systems in parallel for a while?
Sonny Wilkinson:
I think our team is happy we did it because it ensured some level of accuracy, but we didn’t have to do it for too long. And then it’s added work, but it is reassuring to know things are functioning the way you need and also allowed us to check some of those requirements off the list, right? Once we knew it was working, we could stop doing it over here. I think it helped towards the end there. I mean, we have the whole team that was doing data entry. I mean, that’s the most important team as you transitioned to go live. They’re the ones who are going to be using it every day. They were included in a lot of these conversations down towards the end about how this was going to work and where you need to put certain information. So that they were really starting to do that as we were shutting down the old one and gearing this up, it was just a really smooth transition.
Sonny Wilkinson:
I mean, we set a date and I think we got there. I’m not going to say we didn’t hit a pebble on the road or two there. It was our busiest time of year. Our big objective was to get this off and going before the end of the year, that’s our busiest time, and we did. And so, they had stopped doing the dual entry and we’re off and going on our own by the end of the year and it worked. It still amazes me.
Jordan Berger:
So, Sonny, I mean, knowing what you know now at this point and you’ve been alive multiple months now, what would you have done differently if you could go back in time?
Sonny Wilkinson:
There’s always going to be a couple of things. I think the unfair thing for you guys on that is now we know the system a little bit more. I said earlier, I know enough to tinker around and break things for you to fix, Jordan. So, I mean, there’s going to be those things. But one thing I think I would have put more emphasis on, it was really hard with some internal transitions we had and then going home and working from home. It was really getting people to do more Trailhead and to go through that process so that they would get to a point of understanding the system a little bit better, because not everybody knows every little piece that goes into this. But if we all had a little bit higher knowledge as we went through that, I think we could have smoothed a couple of things out.
Sonny Wilkinson:
Like I said, we were, we were up and running by the end of the year, which was our busiest time. We got about every gift in, so that was a win. I know we’ve met recently over some stuff we want to move around or change, but I don’t know that we would’ve caught that early enough or understood the system enough to help you guys get that information out of us.
Sonny Wilkinson:
We had our best fundraising year ever at the end of the year, and that was because we were reaching more people through our marketing channels. We were inputting that data quicker, so we were able to thank donors sooner. We were able to get a better look at who we were going to send stuff to. So in a year which pretty much every metric was against a nonprofit raising money, we beat our goal and had our best year ever. I mean, I’m sure there’s multiple factors that go into that, but we did that with the system. We were able to get there. And so, that’s a huge win for us.
Sonny Wilkinson:
But I mean, I think other early wins, we’re hearing from our data entry team, and I’ll caveat this by saying, it’s still not perfect, but we’ve talked about this, we got to keep evolving on it, but how easy it was for them to really pick up and go with the new system and understand it and use it. We can always perfect that. We can always look at our processes, but I think they were honestly dreading and fearing this transition. But I think once they got in there and started using it, and we had your help, we had the help of Salesforce, and then using Trailhead with them, they got up and going quick. It was an amazing thing to see, because I think sometimes we have meetings and I feel like they were behind or something wasn’t working right. And then again, Jordan would go look at the data or what’s been going on and we’d go, “You guys are hitting the metrics. You’re doing it.”
Sonny Wilkinson:
Another win for us early on, it was a little later part of the process, but once it got going about simulating live was Pardot. Our marketing team before, to get email addresses out of the old system was painful. It would almost take weeks at some point. So we couldn’t pivot quickly and communicate with the people we really needed to or wanted to. As a research institution in the middle of a pandemic year, that tool, Pardot, couldn’t have come at a better time for us because it allowed us to start sending weekly communications to our donors and others to see or to communicate with them, “Here’s some information you need to know now about the pandemic and what’s going on.” We can focus on different things.
Sonny Wilkinson:
As that evolved and went on, after our interview, fundraising and we’re calling and thanking donors and doing all that, I’ve never heard so much feedback on one particular thing that they loved so much. That was constant about how great those columns were. They loved the information and they looked forward to getting them on Sundays. That was amazing. And so, Pardot absolutely got us to that mark and I have no doubt in my mind that that helped us raise more money at the end of the year, even though those emails didn’t really contain an ask. It was just pure information that we were sending out that we knew was relevant, and donors ate it up. They loved it.
Jordan Berger:
So, Sonny, I mean, me, you and Lawson and Brent have been on lots of calls recently around additional features and functionality that you’re looking to roll out. What’s next on the roadmap for you guys?
Sonny Wilkinson:
I think for us, we’re still trying to perfect our engagement with donors, and we’re always going to be trying to tweak that as one. So I think one thing we really want to start looking at is our donor journeys and engagement plans and how we can automate some of that and really use the system. I think the other big thing, and this is what we met about the other day, was really tightening up our data entry and collection to make it a little bit smoother, a little bit quicker. We’re getting stuff in there. Our error rates from data entry aren’t bad, but we know we could probably make that a little bit easier. Part of that is going to be internal, too, on just how we use things and go about it, but you guys have heard my crazy ideas and had those conversations with how we can get there and do it. So I think those are our two big focuses going forward right now. I know there’ll be more. But I mean, what do you guys think as you look at us and what we’re using?
Jordan Berger:
There’s the tightening up of the data entering. Salesforce has their gift entry tool, which we’ve talked about leveraging now that we’re away from millennium, but we used to be using. I agree that we can definitely be looking at enhanced engagement with your donors, as well as working in addition with Pardot. So I think we’re definitely aligned on those priorities.
Sonny Wilkinson:
I’m excited to do these couple of things and then see what’s next. For me, this is going to be an evolving system. It’s going to be an evolving thing. We got trapped in the last one, where we just wouldn’t regularly update it. We wouldn’t regularly do new things with it. Part of that was system. Part of that was we were on our own. I think you guys can help us get there, because we can talk about it. You guys regularly send us updates and say, “Hey, check this out. Or do you think about this?” since you guys want to keep pushing us forward too, which is reassuring.
Jordan Berger:
Another thing that we didn’t talk about, Sonny, but that Lawson mentioned earlier about counting the story with your data. I know we’ve had conversations around leveraging Salesforce reports and dashboards, but also looking at Tableau CRM to really get a more nuanced view of your data because you have so much, so many different data points to be able to take action if it’s through marketing or enhanced fundraising. So that’s something I’m excited to look at with you guys as well.
Sonny Wilkinson:
I think we’re recognizing now that we have this tool. It doesn’t mean more fundraising stuff to go do some things. It means if we can pull out this data and look at it, we might start understanding some trends and where things are happening. One thing that’s big to us is planned giving and the state gifts to come in. There’s a real big want to go and understand these donors. Where did they come from? How did they find out about us? What are the connection points? We’ve never been able to do that. I know that’s a big stretching goal, but I think some of these tools that you just mentioned, we can start seeing those trends and start putting it together so we can go meet these people. Because for us, the gift is wonderful.
Sonny Wilkinson:
We’re always grateful that they chose to leave their estate to OMRF. I mean, some of these gifts are truly impactful and it’s wonderful. It’s sad to us because we didn’t get to know the donor. Oftentimes, they weren’t in a high level and they weren’t engaged with us all the time. We’d love to change that so we can get to know them a little bit better and know their story so we can share that too, because that’s part of that gift. So you guys can help us get there.
Lawson Condrey:
Yeah. That’s exciting. It sounds wonderful.
Sonny Wilkinson:
But as we emerged from the cave that is end-of-year fundraising for the development team, then I started asking some questions to Brent on what was next. His response to me was, “Well, let’s just meet with Lawson and set up a meeting.” I mean, I think the day or two later, Lawson, you were on my computer screen and we were talking. I was so relieved at how easy that was. I was worried. I didn’t know what to expect, but boom, you were there. So, thank you for being there.
Lawson Condrey:
Well, we value your partnership and we’re excited to continue on this path. It’s going to be fun.
Sonny Wilkinson:
It’s been a fun journey, for sure. I mean, it’s incredible to think we did this all from our homes. That’s crazy that we were able to accomplish that. So, we couldn’t have done it without you guys being at home working with us. Thank you.
Lawson Condrey:
I appreciate that.