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Understanding Golden's NationBuilder Integration

Understanding Golden's NationBuilder Integration

NationBuilder is a CRM known best for servicing political campaigns and advocacy organizations, but is also used by some non-profits. Its primary strength is in its email segmentation and campaign features, used for communications and small-dollar fundraising campaigns.

Golden's integration with NationBuilder benefits NationBuilder customers (non-profits) by allowing those customers to see a more complete profile of each donor. Not only will the Non-Profit see the individual person's donation history, but also that person's volunteering history. This gives a broader picture of engagement—financial and time—which is a better predictor of future willingness to donate.

The traditional model of fundraising means asking everyone for a set level of money (say, $25) until they donate. Afterwards, you ask that person to donate a little more than they did last year. However, if you notice that a donor has vastly increased their volunteering over the past year, it's a good indication that that person is a prime target for a significant increase in financial donations as well as volunteering.

 

What does the Golden → NationBuilder integration do?

Golden's integration with NationBuilder is "one-way." That means that Golden sends info to NationBuilder; NationBuilder does NOT send info to Golden.

How Golden works with NationBuilder's people:

  • Creates or updates a "person" in NationBuilder for every Golden volunteer
  • Golden sends the following volunteer information to NationBuilder:
    • First name
    • Middle name (if set)
    • Last name
    • Email
    • Phone (if set)
    • Sex (if gender is set - sent as M, F, or O)
  • Golden uses email to check if a record already exists in NationBuilder. If yes, Golden updates that existing person's information
  • Golden marks each person as a volunteer by setting is_volunteer: true in NationBuilder

Tags for tracking volunteer activity:

  • Whenever a volunteer signs up for a volunteer opportunity in Golden, Golden creates new "Tags" in NationBuilder:
    • 1 tag with the name of the "Organization" that hosted the opportunity in Golden (format: golden:{Organization name})
    • 1 tag with the name of the opportunity from Golden (format: golden:opportunity:{Opportunity name})
    • Note: Fundraiser-type opportunities do NOT create opportunity tags

Common Questions:

  • Can you track volunteer hours in NationBuilder?
    No. NationBuilder doesn't have a place to track volunteer hours. "Tags" are used to show which opportunities volunteers have participated in.
  • Do the groups or contacts that I create in NationBuilder get sent to Golden?
    No. Golden sends info to NationBuilder, but not the other way around.
  • Do the groups I've created in Golden get sent to NationBuilder?
    Unfortunately not yet, but the tags that Golden sends to NB are a great alternative.

How do I set up the integration?

  1. You need to be a NationBuilder customer already.
  2. You need to upgrade your Golden account to Professional.
  3. In your Golden Dashboard, go to Settings → Integrations.