Case Study: Illuminate the Arts achieves robust donor engagement and streamlined fundraising for The Bay Lights with Heroku

Salesforce and Heroku Brighten the Future of Monumental Public Art in the Bay Area

ILLUMINATE, the San Francisco nonprofit behind The Bay Lights public art installation, needed a fast, scalable way to turn public enthusiasm into sustained donor relationships through its Shine It Forward program—letting people dedicate LEDs and personalize their gifts—while integrating donations and interactions into a single system of record ahead of the project’s re‑lighting for Super Bowl 50.

Using Salesforce as the donor platform and Heroku to build a mobile‑first, universal web app, a small development team delivered a microservices solution in about six weeks. Heroku Connect synced donor activity in real time to Salesforce while add‑ons (Filestack, Blitline, Postgres, Mandrill) enabled photo uploads, personalized certificates, storage, and email automation. The result: a robust donor‑engagement system that streamlined operations, boosted personalization and sharing, and helped ILLUMINATE deepen community support for future large‑scale public art.

Illuminate the Arts

Ben Davis

Founder & Chief Visionary Officer, ILLUMINATE