The Netherlands is world-famous for its cycling culture, with cities like Amsterdam and Utrecht ranking among the most bike-friendly in the world. Among the many organizations contributing to this success is our new customer, Fietsersbond, the Dutch Cyclists’ Union. With 30 team members, 1,500 volunteers, and 33,000 members, they play a key role in advocating for better infrastructure and safer roads, because keeping The Netherlands a safe and happy cycling country is their main goal.
Recently, Fietsersbond selected Salesforce and FinDock. We sat down with Judith Verkerk, Head of Operations and Finance, and Doris van der Putten, Application Manager, to talk about their selection process and their upcoming digital transformation journey.
“We want to make sure everyone can contribute to cycling happiness,” says Judith. “That means making our internal processes efficient and enjoyable. How do we get the most out of our CRM? And what do we need to make that happen?”
The challenges: a disconnected and manual system
For years, Fietsersbond used Microsoft Dynamics to manage memberships, but marketing and managing payments were fragmented, making their work inefficient and frustrating.
“When I joined, the CRM was already in place, but it was never really set up for our needs,” says Doris. “The CRM, marketing and fundraising processes were running separately, and we were constantly working in Excel, manually processing data. It took up so much time. Everyone was trying to work around our current CRM because it was not adding enough value.”
Payment processing was another highly manual task. Fietsersbond has several payment channels, and a mix of private donors, corporate contributions, one-time gifts and recurring memberships. Their three main channels require manual work for processing the payment data:
- Donations come in via Buckaroo, and are processed by exporting and importing data with Excel
- Membership fees are collected via Direct Debit or Bank Transfer and manually imported from their bank
- One-time gifts are made via ‘Mijn Eenmalige Gift’ which requires processing by retyping the data
The disconnected system slowed them down, made payment operations inefficient and maybe even most important: it was a very unenjoyable task.
Why Salesforce and FinDock?
After exploring different solutions, Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud + Marketing Cloud Account Engagement + FinDock came out as the best fit.
“Our marketing automation has outgrown its setup, and we need everything to work together in one system,” says Doris. “That made the choice easy: Salesforce combined with FinDock offers everything we need for our CRM, Marketing and payment needs.”
“FinDock was the obvious choice for payments: every Salesforce partner we spoke to recommended FinDock because of its ability to seamlessly integrate with Salesforce and handle all payment operations within the CRM.”
The vision: efficiency, accuracy, and happiness
Fietsersbond’s project goal is clear: improve payment operations, improve data quality, and make work more enjoyable.
“At the moment, we easily spend a full week’s worth of work (1 FTE) on manual processes in both marketing and payments,” says Doris. “With our new system, that’s going to change.”
For Judith, it’s also about happiness: “It’s not just about saving time; it’s about creating a better work environment. I want to see happier people, spending time on meaningful work instead of chasing payment data or on manual reporting.”
Looking ahead: a smarter, more impactful Fietsersbond
With Salesforce and FinDock, Fietsersbond is going to create a future-proof system for membership management, marketing, and fundraising. With their new system, they will be ready to make an even bigger impact for cyclist in The Netherlands.
Just like Fietsersbond strives to bring happiness and ease to cyclists, this transformation is also about bringing happiness, efficiency, and impact to their own organization. After go-live, they can focus even more on what really matters: advocating for cyclists, improving infrastructure, and spreading cycling happiness throughout the Netherlands.
Learn more about Fietsersbond on their website.