Case study · Monterey County Gives!

One county, one giving season — and more than $17 million raised for the nonprofits that hold it together.

Monterey County Gives! is one of the region's largest give-local campaigns — a two-month year-end season that rallies 215 local nonprofits behind a single place to give. We built the platform it runs on from the ground up to carry that kind of scale, then wired it directly into the Community Foundation's Salesforce CRM — replacing a paid third-party connector and saving them real money every campaign.

$17M+ raised in a single giving season
215 local nonprofits rally behind one campaign
Direct to Salesforce — no third-party connector
The challenge

A campaign this big leaves no room for technology that can't keep up.

Monterey County Gives! concentrates a whole county's year-end generosity into a two-month window — hundreds of nonprofits, thousands of donors, and millions of dollars, much of it moving in the final days of the year. That takes a platform engineered for the moment donors show up in force. It also takes clean data: every gift has to land in the Community Foundation's Salesforce CRM. For years that link ran through a paid third-party connector sitting between the campaign and Salesforce — an extra cost, and an extra thing to break at exactly the wrong time.

The build

A countywide give platform, built for the campaign's scale.

We built the platform from the ground up to carry a two-month season at full volume — the campaign home, a directory of 215 participating nonprofits, and live totals the whole county watches climb, all in one trusted place to give.

  • One countywide front door for 215 local nonprofits
  • Live totals that turn generosity into visible momentum
  • Engineered to stay fast when the whole county gives at once
montereycountygives.com
The Monterey County Gives! nonprofit directory on desktop
The same nonprofit directory rendered on a tablet
A participating nonprofit's profile page on a phone
The give experience

Give in a few taps — and land straight in Salesforce.

Every gift runs through a donation flow tuned for speed and trust, then syncs directly into the Community Foundation's Salesforce CRM through the custom integration we built — no third-party connector in the middle, and no reconciling records after the fact.

  • A fast, accessible checkout built to complete the gift
  • Custom, direct integration into their Salesforce CRM
  • The paid middleware — and its yearly cost — removed
montereycountygives.com/donate
The Monterey County Gives! donation flow on desktop, giving to multiple nonprofits in one cart
The same donation flow rendered on a tablet
The checkout step on a phone

Built for the campaign — and for the systems behind it.

We didn't adapt the campaign to fit our software. We built the platform around how Monterey County Gives! actually runs, then connected it straight to the tools the Foundation relies on.

Step 1 · Built from the ground up

A platform sized for the season

We engineered the platform for a two-month campaign at full volume — 215 nonprofit profiles, live countywide totals, and a give experience that stays fast and dependable through the year-end surge when donors show up in force.

Step 2 · Direct to Salesforce

A custom integration that cut out the middleman

We built a custom integration that connects the give campaign directly to the Community Foundation's Salesforce CRM — replacing the paid third-party connector that used to sit between them. Gifts and donor records flow straight in, and the Foundation saves that recurring cost every campaign.

Step 3 · A partner that stays

Dependable through every campaign

We stay close through each season — the platform performs when donors arrive in force, and the team is right there whenever the Foundation needs us, so they can focus on the nonprofits at the heart of the community.

What changed.

The at-a-glance numbers are the headline. Here's what they mean on the ground — for the nonprofits, the donors, and the Community Foundation behind it all.

$17M+ in one season

A whole county's year-end generosity, concentrated into one trusted place to give — and a platform built to carry it without buckling in the final-day rush.

215 nonprofits, one stage

A wide swath of the region's nonprofits — large and small — share one campaign, and that breadth is what propels the whole season to the levels it reaches.

Middleware gone

The custom direct-to-Salesforce integration replaced the paid third-party connector the Foundation was relying on — cutting a recurring cost and a recurring point of failure.

Performance under load

When donors show up in force, the platform holds — so a moment of goodwill becomes a completed gift, not an abandoned checkout.

Running a campaign the scale of Monterey County Gives! leaves no room for technology that can't keep up. Generation Web has been a steady, dependable partner through every campaign, and their GenGives platform performs when our donors show up in force. The team is right there with us whenever we need them, making it easier for us to focus on what matters: supporting the nonprofits at the heart of our community.
Brian Thayer · Director of Donor Services, Community Foundation for Monterey County

Want a giving season like this for your community?

Tell us about your foundation and the campaign you're building. We'll show you what GenGives can do — and be honest if we're not the right fit.