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Wilderness Committee

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Digital Fundraising Coordinator → External Consultant · 2023 — Present · Visit Site
Salesforce Pardot Shopify FormAssembly Apsona Conga

Challenge

I was hired into a brand new role, mid-Salesforce migration. The org had ambitious fundraising goals but was drowning in disconnected systems — Salesforce, Pardot, Shopify, FormAssembly, and more — with no one really owning the technical side.

Solution

I became that person. Took ownership of Salesforce admin, development, and automation. Built integrations between all the systems. Created a formal data management plan. Worked hand-in-hand with donor relations to understand what they actually needed.

Outcome

40% fewer lost monthly donors over my tenure. The data management plan I built still guides the organization today. Left the digital infrastructure in a place where the next person could actually build on it instead of fighting it.

How It Started vs. How It Went

The job posting: Digital Fundraising Coordinator What I actually did: Salesforce admin, developer, and integration architect for a 40+ year old environmental nonprofit

The Wilderness Committee is Canada’s largest membership-based wilderness preservation organization. They’ve been fighting for old-growth forests and endangered species since 1980. When I joined, they were mid-migration to Salesforce, and nobody really knew how to make all the pieces work together.

What I Built

Salesforce Everything

  • Admin: Users, permissions, custom objects, the works
  • Development: Custom Apex when the point-and-click tools couldn’t cut it
  • Automation: Flows, Process Builder (RIP), scheduled jobs

System Integrations

The nonprofit tech stack is a special kind of chaos:

  • Pardot for email marketing and lead nurturing
  • Shopify for the online store
  • FormAssembly for donation forms and surveys
  • Apsona for bulk data operations
  • Conga for document generation

I built and maintained the integrations that kept data flowing between all of these.

Data Management

Created a formal data management plan — who owns what data, how it’s updated, what the source of truth is. The boring stuff that prevents chaos.

The Results

The number I’m proudest of: 40% reduction in monthly donor churn over my two years there. That wasn’t just tech — it was working closely with donor relations to understand when people were at risk of leaving and making sure someone reached out.

Lessons Learned

  • Nonprofits are under-resourced and over-ambitious. That’s not a bug, it’s the nature of mission-driven work.
  • “We just need someone to set up Salesforce” means “we need you to be IT, ops, and data for the next two years.”
  • The best technical solutions come from understanding the humans using them.