What Nonprofits Should Look for in a SaaS Provider

For example, a nonprofit may initially only need an e-communications system for its broadcast e-mails, e-newsletters and direct-mail campaigns. With a unified platform, all interactions and activities associated with these campaigns are captured in the nonprofit’s online system and will remain there to be leveraged when the organization activates additional applications on the platform, such as a donor-management or advocacy system. Unified platforms enable the collection and analysis of information that is critical to both an organization’s survival and its growth, allowing the outcomes to be shared and utilized across departments, chapters and even organization-wide. This free-flow of information helps nonprofits learn and distribute best practices, getting internal players working from the same set of data. In contrast, nonprofits that don’t use vendors with unified platforms generate additional information “silos” and databases, resulting in a lack of useful business analysis and intelligence.