Georgia Symphony Orchestra – Auditing & training for nonprofit impact

Company Size

11 - 50 emp

Industry

Nonprofit

Customer since

2023

Georgia Symphony Orchestra (GSO) received an in-kind donation from Sercante to get the most out of their Nonprofit Success Pack org for continued growth moving forward. The donation allowed the organization to make the most of its technology investments and better serve the community it touches.

The
Challenge

Georgia Symphony Orchestra implemented new tools but lacked in-house experts to set the team up for success

Instilling a lifelong love of the arts for generations of families, the GSO was founded in 1951 as the Marietta Music Club and has evolved into a world-class orchestral institution. Today, the nonprofit organization serves communities through educational programming and performances that inspire audiences, students, and professional musicians. 

  • GSO implemented Nonprofit Success Pack, but they knew they weren’t using all the robust features the Salesforce platform offers. They also weren’t sure if the implementation was completed correctly and wanted to get ahead of it before finding major issues later on.
  • With new initiatives that focus on the development and care of alumni and donors, GSO wants Salesforce to be their source of truth moving forward by providing reliable data for reporting, campaign initiatives, and business development. 
  • The organization serves many different personas through its various programs, and each program has its own goals and objectives. They wanted the org optimized to be ready for tracking youth orchestra and alumni development as well as the other personas they serve. 
  • The ultra-resourceful organization taps into third-party systems to manage other organizational initiatives, like payment processing and email marketing.
  • The team was new to Salesforce and didn’t have anyone on the team to manage the tool.

Nonprofits have a whole set of challenges that for-profit companies usually don’t have to face. The running theme for these organizations is that they have limited resources and always have to find ways to make it happen even when there’s no budget for it. It was that attitude that led the board members to look to members of the GSO for help with keeping operations moving in the right direction.

The Partnership

A GSO board member sparked a conversation with a chorus member in a Salesforce hoodie, which led to the partnership.

Sercante Jump Start Program Manager Cate Godley is a chorus member for the GSO and has been for several years. Before working at Sercante, she wore her Salesforce Trailblazer hoodie to a chorus rehearsal and caught the eye of a board member.  

“I was wearing a Trailblazer hoodie, and one of the board members asked me if I knew anything about Salesforce,” said Godley.

She got to know several board members in the years that followed. They eventually introduced her to GSO Executive Director Suzanne Tucker. 

  • Tucker approached Godley and connected her with teams at GSO who could use her administrative help with their Nonprofit Success Pack setup.
  • Godley volunteered her time and Salesforce expertise by completing administrative tasks for the organization. 
  • She wanted to do more for the GSO. That’s when she looked to her team at Sercante to look for ways to support the organization through company-level pro-bono work.

“Suzanne approached me to let me know that she really wanted to start utilizing their Salesforce org to its fullest potential, and the timing lined up perfectly,” said Godley.

Client feedback

“The Sercante team was professional, supportive and definitely knew their stuff! They helped us assess our current state and provided clear and actionable next steps to help our organization reach our goals.”

Suzanne Tucker
Executive Director, Georgia Symphony Orchestra

The
Solution

Going through a full audit to guide future-state recommendations and then putting the keys in the steady GSO team member hands

The organization’s main objective was to rely on their Salesforce org as the source of truth for all of their data moving forward. That being said, the team needed to know that everything going into Salesforce was synthesized in the correct way so they could rely on the CRM when making decisions for the organization.

To get them there, we completed a full Nonprofit Success Pack org audit to guide future state recommendations and then handed them the power to maintain it moving forward through training.

Through the solution, we:

  • Analyzed 120 elements of their Salesforce org through a technical audit.
  • Provided results in a detailed report that included recommendations to fix any issues we found through the audit.
  • Donated two seats from our Salesforce for Marketers Bootcamp, which is a six-week immersive training program delivered virtually.
The Result

The organization is ready to move forward with Salesforce serving as the single source of truth when it comes to data

The audit revealed ways the team can get the most out of their Salesforce instance. Those findings included things like activating features that can reduce org waste and make it easier for new-to-Salesforce team members to maintain the tools.

Now with a manageable org that has data the team can trust, they are fully set up to maintain the Salesforce instance moving forward. The team now has two internal people who understand how the platform works and what to do in the future to keep things running smoothly.

We deliver results