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3 More Reasons to Be Excited About the Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit
05 Nov, 2021
In April, 2021, we published a blog article, 6 Reasons to Be Excited About the Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit, where we introduced Microsoft’s newest solution for the non-profit sector. Because we focus on helping local and worldwide non-profits, we were very excited about what it had to offer…and now, we’re even happier to share that the latest release has even more to offer organizations of all sizes.
The Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit is a suite of applications that connects the cloud capabilities of the Microsoft stack to common challenges faced by non-profits, pulling workflows and data sources from across the organization onto one platform. It anchors to the Nonprofit Common Data Model (CDM), a common language for nonprofits and their technology partners.
The Cloud for Nonprofit is a platform-agnostic set of entities, attributes, and relationships addressing common non-profit scenarios. It breaks down silos between applications and data stores for an integrated experience, helping staff and volunteers be more efficient by giving them the data they need at their fingertips. Its structure makes it easy to adopt at your own pace and grow into it as time, need, and budget requires, which is a relief in a world where budgets are tight.
In our previous post, we shared 6 reasons to be excited about the Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit. Here are 3 more:
#1 Fundraising and Engagement has gone through some significant changes–all of them good. An app designed to help manage donors and raise funds, it gives you the ability to your donors and funders how their money is being spent by breaking down silos across programs and operations. You can follow the flow of funding from initial gift through to program delivery and on to impact measurement, which helps you to understand donor propensity and design personalized engagement for fundraising.
Modernized donor and constituent engagement to increase mission impact include management of constituent and household, opportunity, donation, campaign, appeal, package, marketing lists, events, designation, and recurring gifts, as well as payment processing, constituent research powered by LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and transaction processing powered by Azure.
#2 Volunteer Engagement and Management has also been significantly enhanced. This functionality helps organizations manage volunteers with better engagement and collaboration to ensure they’re being utilized for the maximum impact on your mission, helping with the design of programs and services and tracking outcomes. It helps you engage and retain more volunteers by making it easier for them to find and apply for opportunities that match their skills, interests, and schedules.
Scheduling is also easier. On the volunteer management front, you can more efficiently manage day-to-day processes to recruit, onboard, and retain larger pools of volunteers, tracking volunteer applications, profiles, attendance, and qualifications. A Volunteer Center saves volunteer managers time, improves the onboarding process for volunteers, and makes communication easier with a central hub of key information and tools.
#3 The Program impact dashboard plays a key role in running a non-profit breaking down silos between fundraising and program priorities. The dashboard makes it fast and easy to understand the impact of funds raised, programs delivered, and outcomes achieved by streamlining preparation of external reports, allowing you to track performance over time, track progress to key program objectives and results, and compare metrics across all programs.
All of these changes demonstrate Microsoft’s continued commitment to the non-profit sector. We’re proud to be a gold-certified Microsoft partner who helps non-profits implement these solutions and advance their missions.