Idealist Consulting's Top Moments of 2016
Today, the Idealist Consulting team is celebrating the holidays with our team. Yes, you read that correctly. We’re celebrating the close of 2016 on the last day of January 2017 due to a few end of the year snow days getting in the way of our earlier plans.
As we spend a little time together in the office, we want to share with you a few of the things that have made us so proud to be a part of the Idealist Consulting team in 2016.
Idealist Consulting turned 10!
In August, we celebrated 10 years of bringing together nonprofits and technology. With a decade of Salesforce and consulting experience, we’re looking at how we can continue to help nonprofits and socially responsible small businesses increase their impact and fuel their growth.
We made the move to Pardot
After 2 years of using Hubspot for marketing automation and hosting the Hubspot user group, we ended our time on the platform and as hosts. We gave some final hugs and words of advice before we jumped over to Pardot, a marketing automation platform that is native in Salesforce. The all-in-one platform is helping us better connect with the platform many of our customers are using. While we still offer services for your organization to use the marketing automation platform of choice, our new home is Pardot.
20 hours of work were donated through our Pay It Forward program
In 2015 we expanded our services to private sector businesses and launched our Pay It Forward program to help bridge a gap between the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors. As each business client reaches 50 hours of work with us, we granted 5 hours of consulting time to an existing nonprofit client of the business’s choice. In 2016, we are proud to say we connected 4 businesses to 4 nonprofits. Thanks to all our business clients who helped us make an impact!
Halcyon Financial Technology donated to Salesian Missions.
Puppet donated to Keep Growing Detroit.
Asana donated to Clackamas Women’s Shelter.
3Degrees Inc donated to The Climate Reality Project.
2,000 nonprofit and small business professionals raised funds and rocked out with us at the Engagement Party
Set in one of San Francisco’s hottest nightclubs during the largest technology conference in the world, Idealist Consulting threw its biggest bash yet! The Engagement Party set the stage for Dreamforce 2016 attendees to let loose and connect with their nonprofit technology peers. After a long night of partying that included a flash mob, a mentalist, and aerial artists swinging above the crowd, we donated all the proceeds to GLIDE, a San Francisco-based nonprofit who works to alleviate suffering and break the cycles of poverty and marginalization.
Ever expanding free resources
Our blog and resources went crazy in 2016. We posted more content than ever, ranging from a Spice Girls-themed article on choosing the software to our popular article on when CRMs are right for a nonprofit.
All-in-all we published 102 blog posts, 2 new whitepapers on conquering technology change and choosing Salesforce applications, 1 webinar on community engagement, and 1 new infographic on the journey from a mass email tool to a marketing automation platform. That’s a lot of content in 2016- and we aren’t looking to slow down in 2017.
We added our name to a few good lists
For the third year in a row, we were honored to make the B Corp Best for the World- Workers award and the Inc.5000 Fastest Growing Companies list. While we’ve accepted these awards before, this year felt different. With a changing business and political climate, we feel more motivated than ever to push forward and help organizations make an impact.
Summer kickball brought us joy, but not many wins
We’re good at a lot of things but kickball is not one of them, hence the name we gave ourselves during the season- I.C. minus. We’re not sure we ever won a game but it was definitely a lot of fun!
We have officially helped our 800th customer
After a decade of work in the nonprofit technology space, we counted up our customers and found we have helped over 800 organizations! If we could sum up the feeling of what this meant in one word it would most certainly be grateful. Along with scoring some of our largest projects of all time in 2016, we saw our staff make some of the biggest impacts. We’re looking forward to helping our 1000th customer soon- and we hope you’ll join us as we throw a bash to celebrate!
We’re doubly committed to making an impact and using our business as a force for good in the changing political climate
More than ever we are focused on making an impact in 2017. As nonprofits and businesses navigate a changing world, we are remaining committed to helping our clients and industry peers focus on making the world a place for good.
Here’s to 2016 and to all of us in 2017! After a day of stories, laughs, and bonding- you can be sure tomorrow, February 1st, we’re hitting the ground running.
