HubSpot for Nonprofits: Brilliant Ways to Market and Generate More Donations

Intentional, personal relationships with people who care deeply about your work and mission are at the heart of nonprofit success. Creating connected fundraising experiences that deliver meaningful stories to the right individuals at the right time is the first step in establishing those critical connections and building strong donor engagement. 

Today, we’re taking a deep dive into one of the most critical pieces of any nonprofit tech stack: customer relationship management (CRM). We’ll specifically use HubSpot for Nonprofits as our CRM software example and detail why a HubSpot integration into your online fundraising platform is critical to generating more donations.

Consider this your comprehensive guide to harnessing the power of HubSpot’s CRM and marketing platform and amplifying your impact directly. 

We’ll cover:

• Improving donor management processes
• Personalizing your nonprofit communications 
• Maximizing impact using HubSpot’s deal pipeline with Classy
• Employing donor segmentation as a key marketing strategy for nonprofits
• Analyzing nonprofit data and metrics with HubSpot and Classy

The Power of HubSpot for Nonprofits

HubSpot for Nonprofits offers organizations access to the leading CRM and marketing hub at a discounted (sometimes free) rate. 

When managing donor relationships, segmenting supporters, creating personalized campaigns, and analyzing data, HubSpot’s CRM functionality is the go-to for over 4,000 forward-thinking organizations. 

5 Reasons Why Nonprofits Gravitate Toward HubSpot

• Digital marketing becomes data driven: HubSpot’s CRM software helps you manage donor and volunteer relationships by tracking critical interactions, creating targeted communications, and leveraging A/B testing to track outreach effectiveness for future planning 

• Donor segmentation is simple and organized: HubSpot helps you gain a more organized view into every donor and volunteer with segmented lists that group your supporters into clear categories, such as loyal donors, first-time donors, inactive donors, donors in specific locations, event attendees, and many others

• You save time but don’t sacrifice quality: HubSpot helps you create messages that resonate and schedule them to automatically send to the right audience, at the right moment, for the most impactful interactions, thanks to accessible email and inbound marketing tools

• There’s always something to learn and improve on: HubSpot helps you track your data in an easy-to-use dashboard to quickly identify opportunities to improve, whether website performance, email campaigns, social media management, or any other area of interest

• The value far outweighs the cost: HubSpot helps nonprofit organizations that hold 501(c)(3) status by offering significant discounts on its tools, allowing them to operate at the scale of for-profit organizations without a huge budget barrier*

*With pricing, it’s always a good idea to check in with the HubSpot for Nonprofits website or contact the team to see what eligibility criteria might apply to your unique organization. 

Why Intentional Marketing Matters

Online giving opened up a new realm of fundraising for nonprofits beyond the scope of physical locations. It also reminded us of the sector’s constant rate of change and the value associated with intentional evolution. Today’s donors want to hear from nonprofits through the channels they prefer and use most often, such as social media, mobile web browsers, and apps. 

In today’s saturated digital landscape, you may feel like you need to be everywhere to prompt moments of inspiration to give effectively. While diversifying your nonprofit marketing strategy is key, the more critical piece of the puzzle is identifying the most effective, impactful places to dedicate your resources to achieve the largest return on investment for your nonprofit organization. 

Also, the importance of personalizing those touchpoints to make each supporter feel special cannot be understated. Marketing automation and quick email templates can help, but donors also know when they receive a robotic-templated message as a follow-up to their actions. 

So how do you present your cause in all the right places but maintain your personality and authenticity? 

That’s where connected fundraising comes in with tools like HubSpot. Get strategic about establishing and nurturing relationships with donors and confident you’re not losing the humanistic feeling that makes all the difference in your nonprofit marketing strategy.

Taking It Up a Notch With a Classy + HubSpot Integration

By now, you’re starting to see how impactful HubSpot’s data can be in fueling your supporters’ journeys from their first impression to celebrating their 10th donor anniversary. The Classy + HubSpot Integration, built by Lynton, helps you peel back a new layer of data-driven decision-making and growth.

Integrating Classy with HubSpot brings two critical systems together for change. Discover how. 

Let’s Take a Look

The biggest benefit of Classy and HubSpot platform integrations is unlocking new pathways for data to travel without requiring anything more from your team. 

Together, integrated data sets create richer insights that allow you to see the entire donor journey. So instead of simply tracking one element of their donor journeys, you receive a 360-degree view of supporters’ involvement. That means you can see marketing patterns that lead to your most successful campaign performance, areas of opportunity to promote an upcoming event, and communication prompts for a recurring gift.

Data on each interaction provides visibility into meaningful trends across your donor base and a reliable full view of individual activity despite how your community scales over time. This information leads to solid marketing campaigns and fundraising plans that reflect the needs and interests of each supporter in your network.

How to Integrate Classy and HubSpot

Organizations can integrate Classy by SyncSmart Integration to sync data into HubSpot’s contact activity and deals. 

Data fields that sync back and forth include:

• Classy Supporters to HubSpot Contacts
• Classy Transactions and Recurring Donation Plans to HubSpot Deals
• HubSpot Contacts to Classy Supporters
• HubSpot Deals to Classy Transactions
• HubSpot Deals to Classy Recurring Donation Plans

Lynton is also here to help nonprofit organizations integrate Classy and HubSpot no matter the situation or customization required. 

See It in Action: Classy and HubSpot Case Study

The Cornell Feline Health Center is a proud organization using Classy and HubSpot for Nonprofits to drive its mission forward. With the help of Media Cause, a mission-driven nonprofit marketing agency, the Cornell Feline Health Center built a strong partnership between the two solutions that fit exactly what the nonprofit wanted.

The team wanted a change and sought out a multifaceted solution that offered:

• An easy way to retain existing records of memberships 
• A superior experience for members and staff administrators
• A more efficient use of HubSpot to help track and scale the nonprofit’s programs
• An improvement in functionality to make reporting simpler

With Media Cause’s expertise and onboarding, the Cornell Feline Health Center had three core campaigns, each with an optimized donation form, to boost conversion rates and gain access to cleaner data in HubSpot. 

Now, the organization has a holistic view of each member’s interactions from before the switch and even more insight as donors engage with the integrated systems. 

Real-time communication and reporting in HubSpot gives the Cornell Feline Health Center informed outreach and clarity about the most effective marketing workflows as it continues to scale.

Read the Full Story

Get One Step Closer to Connected Fundraising

You know your story best and deserve the tools to get it out in a way that pulls in support for your greatest potential impact. A deeper understanding of your supporter relationships and intentional communications across email, SMS, content-rich landing pages, and other inbound channels help you do what you do best. Each interaction is an opportunity for donor retention and expanding your circle.

The teams at HubSpot and Classy are excited and ready to chat through any questions about the integration as you imagine how your donor journey can unfold with the support of connected data insights. 

Copy Editor: Ayanna Julien