Integrate Muster’s advocacy platform with your donor management software to enhance engagement and boost fundraising efforts for your nonprofit.
Nonprofits thrive on relationships. Every gift, every petition signature, every email to a legislator tells a story about how deeply a supporter cares about your mission. But here’s the challenge: too often, your advocacy tools and donor management systems don’t “talk” to each other.
That disconnect creates silos. One system shows you who gave. Another shows you who took action. Without connecting them, you’re missing the bigger picture: your strongest supporters aren’t just donors or advocates—they’re both.
When you bring advocacy and donor data together, you gain powerful insights that help you build stronger relationships, raise more funds, and increase policy impact. Let’s dig into why this matters, how you can connect Muster with donor management platforms like Bloomerang, Virtuous, and Salesforce, and what kind of results you can expect.
Imagine this:
Maria sends a letter to her state senator through a Muster advocacy campaign in January.
In February, she donates $50 to a specific issue-based fundraising campaign you're running.
In March, she takes action again through a Muster advocacy campaign.
If your advocacy and donor records are separate, you’ll see these as isolated actions—nice to have, but disconnected. But if the systems are connected, you’ll see Maria for who she really is: a passionate, recurring champion who gives, advocates, and truly cares about the cause.
That changes how you engage her:
Instead of sending her the same “thank you for your gift” email as everyone else, you can personalize: “Thank you not only for your generous gift, but also for speaking out on behalf of our cause. We were able to send over 2,000 messages to state legislators this month, and you were a key part of those results.”
Instead of treating her like a one-time donor, you can identify her as a potential monthly donor or major gift prospect, and what issues matter to her most.
Instead of sending generic advocacy updates, you can send targeted communications: “Since you gave and advocated on this issue, here’s the outcome we achieved.”
This is the power of connected systems: you move from a partial snapshot to a full 360-degree view of supporter engagement.
Nonprofits that integrate advocacy and donor management often see three clear benefits:
Advocates are more likely to become donors—and donors who advocate are more likely to stay engaged long-term. By connecting data, you can:
Identify advocates who haven’t yet donated and invite them to give.
Spot donors who are highly active in advocacy and ask them to upgrade to monthly giving.
Run reports that show how advocacy participation correlates with giving levels.
Supporters notice when you acknowledge all the ways they show up for your mission. A donor who gets thanked for advocacy feels seen. An advocate who gets invited to become a donor feels like their voice matters. By connecting these systems, you can uncover more personalization potential. That personalization builds loyalty.
Board members, funders, and legislators all want to know: Are you making an impact? When your data is connected, you can tell a richer story:
“This year, 40% of our donors also took action on an advocacy campaign.”
“Supporters who both donated and advocated were twice as likely to renew their gift.”
That kind of evidence makes your organization stand out and speaks to the efficacy of your efforts to your stakeholders and your nonprofit's board.
The good news is that you don’t need a big IT budget or a team of developers to connect Muster with your donor management system. Tools like Zapier make it simple for platforms like Bloomerang and Virtuous. And if you’re using Salesforce, Muster’s native Salesforce app makes integration seamless.
Let’s look at some practical examples.
Zapier works by creating “Zaps”—automated workflows that say, “If this happens in Muster, then do that in Bloomerang.”
Here’s a step-by-step example:
Trigger in Muster: A supporter takes an advocacy action (like emailing their legislator).
Zapier Action: Zapier creates or updates that supporter’s contact record in Bloomerang.
Customization: Create an Interaction like “Advocacy Participant” or pull in the advocacy campaign name.
Now, when you pull a list in Bloomerang, you’ll instantly see which donors are also advocacy participants. You can build segments such as “donors who advocated in the last 90 days” or “advocates who haven’t yet donated” for highly targeted outreach.
Virtuous users can do something similar:
Trigger in Muster: A supporter signs onto an advocacy campaign.
Zapier Action: Zapier adds that person to a Virtuous contact list, e.g. “Policy Advocates.”
Follow-up: Your team sets an automated workflow in Virtuous to send campaign-specific updates.
For example, after someone advocates, they could receive:
An immediate thank-you email.
A follow-up update: “Because of supporters like you, the bill passed the committee stage.”
A fundraising ask tied to their advocacy: “You spoke out—will you also give $25 to help us keep pushing this forward?”
This kind of integration ensures that advocacy isn’t a “one-and-done” action, but rather part of a continuing relationship.
For nonprofits in the Salesforce ecosystem, the process is even smoother. Muster offers a Salesforce app that syncs advocacy data directly into your nonprofit CRM.
This means:
When a donor gives and takes advocacy action, both activities show up on their Salesforce record.
Staff across departments—development, advocacy, and communications—can all see the same data without logging into multiple systems.
You can build Salesforce reports and dashboards that show cross-engagement trends, like “Top donors who are also most active in advocacy.”
For example, your development officer making a stewardship call can say: “I see you not only gave last quarter but also took action twice on our clean water campaign. Thank you for being such a committed supporter.”
Some nonprofit teams hesitate to integrate advocacy and donor management systems. Here are the most common objections—and why integration is worth it.
“Our systems already work fine separately.”
They may “work,” but they aren’t giving you the full picture. Integration doesn’t replace what you’re doing—it enhances it by connecting the dots.
“We don’t have the time or staff to manage an integration.”
With tools like Zapier, setup can take less than an hour. Once running, the workflows save your staff time by eliminating manual data entry.
“We’re worried about data getting messy.”
On the contrary, integrations reduce duplicates and errors by maintaining consistent supporter records across systems. Plus, you control what fields sync and how they’re labeled.
“We’re too small for this.”
Small teams often benefit the most from connected systems. With fewer staff, you need every tool working efficiently together—and integration ensures you’re not missing opportunities to deepen relationships.
When you connect Muster’s advocacy platform to your donor management software, you transform scattered data into actionable insight. You gain:
A full picture of how supporters engage.
The ability to personalize outreach and deepen loyalty.
Smarter fundraising by identifying your most committed champions.
Stronger storytelling to show the true impact of your community.
Integrating isn’t just a technical upgrade. It’s a strategy to unlock the potential of the supporters you already have—and to move them from one-time actors to lifelong advocates and donors.
If you’re ready to take the next step, start simple: connect Muster to Bloomerang or Virtuous with Zapier, or install the Salesforce app if you’re already in that ecosystem. The payoff—stronger relationships, more impact, and greater sustainability—is well worth it.
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