Salesforce.org Empowers Nonprofits and Higher Education Institutions to Drive Social Impact at Scale with Einstein AI

By STS News Desk On Mar 21, 2019

Salesforce.org Empowers Nonprofits and Higher Education Institutions to Drive Social Impact at Scale with Einstein AI

College Forward, Reading Partners, Arizona State University and Taylor University are among the innovative organizations using Salesforce.org and Einstein AI to transform their organizations and accelerate their impact

Salesforce.org, the social enterprise of Salesforce, the global leader in CRM, is bringing the power of Salesforce Einstein Artificial Intelligence to empower nonprofits and higher education institutions of all sizes, enabling them to deepen engagement with their constituents and students, make smarter decisions and operate more efficiently. During AI for Good Week, Salesforce.org will showcase how innovative organizations including College Forward, Reading Partners, Arizona State University and Taylor University are using Einstein to accelerate their impact.

Built on the Salesforce Platform, Salesforce.org’s industry-specific CRM solutions Nonprofit Cloud and Education Cloud are infused with Einstein. Leveraging the power of Einstein, nonprofits can tap into machine learning and predictive intelligence to improve program management and automate tasks and workflows, allowing them to fundraise and allocate resources more efficiently to drive more impact. For educational institutions, AI makes it possible to pinpoint student issues early and provide recommended actions, so that staff can intervene proactively and ensure students stay on the right path to success.

“Artificial intelligence has many promising applications for all industries,” said Rob Acker, CEO, Salesforce.org. “Our goal is to put this powerful technology in the hands of changemakers and equip them to transform the social sector for good.”

Salesforce Einstein for Nonprofit Cloud: A Faster Path to Achieving Your Mission
Nonprofits are challenged with resource constraints and often use outdated, legacy technology that makes it harder for them to achieve their missions. Einstein for Nonprofit Cloud enables nonprofits to intelligently measure outcomes in real-time, engage and raise resources in a more personalized way, and efficiently manage their programs. Here’s how College Forward and Reading Partners are making their organizations smarter and more productive with Einstein:

College Forward: Driving Higher Graduation Rates with AI
College Forward, a Texas based nonprofit that reaches more than 12,000 students from low-income homes across the state of Texas and beyond, helping them achieve their post-secondary dreams. College Forward uses Nonprofit Cloud for managing operations, grants and student engagement, and Einstein to surface dropout risk factors in CoPilot — a student information solution built on the Salesforce platform and created by College Forward — so that its coaches can proactively help students when they need it most.

“Our predictive dashboard helps us predict and evaluate our work and better understand what we’re doing well and where we need improvement,” said Austin Buchan, CEO, College Forward. “For the first time ever, our coaches can rapidly identify on a day-to-day basis which students are in most need of their support.”

Reading Partners: Using AI to Close the Achievement Gap
Reading Partners — a national nonprofit that mobilizes communities to provide proven reading support for under-resourced schools — uses Nonprofit Cloud to manage all donations and grants, constituent and donor data, and engagement with volunteers and students. With a 360-degree view of its operations and critical data in Salesforce, Reading Partners deployed Einstein Analytics to automatically surface insights and correlations that could help the organization proactively identify areas with lower performing scores and take action to improve student performance.

“With Einstein Analytics, we’re now able to see if a specific school district has lower test scores than another, and we can re-allocate our resources and tutors to provide more assistance where it’s needed most,” said Lola McCall, Salesforce Administer of Reading Partners. “By understanding where additional resources would be most helpful, we can also adjust our fundraising strategy to make sure donations are focused on lower performing areas in need of additional support.”

Salesforce Einstein for Education Cloud: Unlock Intelligent Insights Across the Entire Student Lifecycle
Education Cloud puts intelligence in the hands of institutions of all sizes—community colleges, four-year universities, business schools and more. Einstein for Education Cloud enables educational institutions to predict future student outcomes, access intelligent recommendations, and automate tasks and workflows across campuses to drive student success. Here’s how Arizona State University and Taylor University will empower both students and staff with Einstein:

Arizona State University: Strengthening Student Relationships
ASU, a public research university with more than 110,000 students enrolled on campus and online, turned to Education Cloud to drive innovation across campus. The university is looking to Einstein to maximize student success and create a tailored experience across the entire student lifecycle. Enrollment and success coaches work with students through the many decisions they face as they chart their educational journeys with ASU. With all of this student data available in Salesforce, Einstein will be able to draw intelligent insights such as course recommendations or tailored support resources that can help coaches respond better and faster while also giving them a more holistic view of the student.

“At ASU, we have a relationship with students throughout their lifetime, and we need to be proactive in what the future of those interactions will be. AI can help us take action on the data we have so that we can serve students in the most respectful and intelligent ways while also guiding them on where their future can go,” said Donna Kidwell, CTO of EdPlus at ASU. “This is why we’re making the technology decisions today that will enable us to execute on this vision in the future.”

Taylor University: Taking Analytics Further
Taylor University, a liberal arts university based in Indiana, uses Education Cloud to streamline admissions and enrollment for thousands of students. The university embraced Einstein Analytics in 2016 to examine how financial aid could best be utilized during the recruiting and admissions process. With stronger insights into how financial aid and scholarships impact recruiting and admissions—coupled with the other insights that Salesforce identifies—Taylor University has seen its student inquiries and enrollment numbers trend upwards.

“The reports and analysis that Einstein generates gives our admissions counselors predictive probability numbers that allow them to start thinking about financial aid strategically, rather than just a process to be completed,” said Nathan Baker, Director of Recruitment and Analytics at Taylor University.