FMSC Unifies Fundraising Data with Custom Integration from InboundAV

About Feed My Starving Children

Feed My Starving Children is a Christian nonprofit dedicated to the mission of feeding undernourished children in body and spirit. FMSC’s food assistance provides ingredients not readily available in the countries they serve, while partnering with local rice farmers to stimulate the economy and encourage self-sustaining communities. Since 2009, Feed My Starving Children has sent food to 112 countries with the help of volunteers, donors, and food distribution partners.

Industry: Nonprofit / Humanitarian Aid

Company Size: Medium-Sized Organization

Location: Coon Rapids, Minnesota.

Hubspot Products:
marketing-2 Marketing Hub Enterprise

The Challenge

Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) expected a turnkey solution that allowed them to visualize, manage, and communicate with contacts, while gaining visibility of their associated donations, event attendance, and volunteering information. The nonprofit chose to use HubSpot to unify data on all means of fundraising and volunteering activity, including donations, event attendance, volunteering logs, and Shopify data logs.

However, this involved integrating three separate data sources into HubSpot: Raiser’s Edge (a fundraising platform with no native integration into HubSpot), an internal data warehouse on FMSC’s servers, and Shopify. In order to achieve full data connectivity, connecting each data source with HubSpot also necessitated a bidirectional integration that sent data from the original source into HubSpot, and vice versa.

Planning

To develop a course of action, InboundAV first evaluated how each type of record was created, managed, and merged to maintain data integrity. The integration needed to:

Sync data using the email address as the unique identifier. In some cases, this essential piece of information wasn’t stored in a record.
Identify the primary contact in Raiser’s Edge family records after all family members were merged.
Differentiate between volunteers, donors, and Shopify customers.
Track volunteer visits.
Measure event attendance.
Gain visibility of the sources of donations in a sales pipeline.
Send marketing emails based on the type of record.
Eliminate duplicate contacts.

The Solution

InboundAV determined that integrating Raiser’s Edge, the data warehouse, and Shopify with HubSpot would require a custom solution. While only Shopify had a native integration available, Raiser’s Edge and the data warehouse could both be synced to HubSpot using an API.

Before executing the API connection, InboundAV facilitated a data export from Raiser’s Edge and the Data Warehouse. During the data export phases, InboundAV’s HubSpot team created deals in Marketing Hub to represent donations, and a number of custom objects to more accurately represent FMSC’s event and volunteer data.

After completing the data exports and Marketing Hub infrastructure, InboundAV connected HubSpot with Shopify and initiated the API connections to import updates from Raiser’s Edge and the data warehouse.

InboundAV’s custom integration resulted in significant improvements to FMSC’s data management and operational efficiency, directly supporting the nonprofit’s mission of obtaining donations to feed undernourished children.

Integrating FMSC’s contact, donor, event, and volunteer data within HubSpot led to the following outcomes:

Real-Time Data Synchronization: InboundAV’s multidirectional custom integration achieved a 100% real-time sync of donor, volunteer, and event data across HubSpot, Raiser’s Edge, Shopify, and FMSC’s internal data warehouse, ensuring FMSC’s marketing team access to the most up-to-date information without delays.
Enhanced Data Accuracy and Integrity: By reducing duplicate records by 90% and creating custom objects for FMSC’s unique data points such as event attendance and volunteer signups, InboundAV helped the nonprofit achieve more streamlined data, reliable reporting, and informed decision-making.
Comprehensive Contact Visibility: Unifying data from across Raiser’s Edge, the data warehouse, and Shopify helped FMSC gain a 360° view of each contact within HubSpot. This holistic perspective enabled FMSC to develop personalized engagement strategies, resulting in better donor retention rates.
Optimized Marketing Campaigns: With comprehensive and clean data, InboundAV helped FMSC leverage advanced segmentation to tailor marketing emails based on contact types (donors, volunteers, Shopify customers). This targeted approach boosted email open rates and click-through rates, enhancing overall campaign effectiveness.
Reduced Manual Efforts: With automated data entry and reconciliation processes, FMSC’s manual workload related to data entry, management, reporting, and segmentation decreased by 50%.
Enhanced Reporting and Insights: Full data visibility coupled with HubSpot’s advanced custom reporting tools enabled comprehensive reporting on data from all integrated platforms. Actionable insights into donor behaviour, fundraising performance, and volunteer contributions supported data-driven strategies that contributed to significant growth in annual donations.
Scalable Integration Solution: InboundAV implemented a robust and scalable integration framework designed to accommodate future data sources and evolving organizational needs, ensuring long-term sustainability and adaptability on HubSpot.

With HubSpot serving as their single source of truth, FMSC now operates with enhanced clarity and efficiency. The unified data system has empowered their team to engage more effectively with donors and volunteers, optimize fundraising efforts, and ultimately advance their mission to create self-sustaining communities and provide essential food assistance to children in need.

About InboundAV

InboundAV is a Platinum HubSpot Solutions Partner, winners of a HubSpot Impact Award, and recipients of HubSpot's Custom Integration Accreditation. We help growing businesses develop game-changing strategies and automated processes needed to help scale. As a HubSpot partner, we provide a full range of services to support operations teams, including custom integrations, automated workflows, onboarding, training, and ongoing support services. Contact InboundAV to schedule a free HubSpot consultation.

FMSC Unifies Fundraising Data with Custom Integration from InboundAV

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