Case Study: Zeppelin University achieves unified contact management and streamlined fundraising with Salesforce for Nonprofits

Zeppelin University flies high with Salesforce

Zeppelin University, a private German university that aims to bridge business, culture and politics, faced fragmented data and slow processes that hindered fundraising, student recruitment and event management. With around two‑thirds of its funding from corporate sponsors and the rest from tuition, the university struggled with siloed contact information, dozens of event spreadsheets and delayed reporting across departments.

By implementing Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zeppelin centralized more than 15,000 contacts, automated web registrations, and tracked sponsor and student interactions in one place. The solution—extended with AppExchange apps and mobile access—gave 45 users across departments instant data, weekly executive reports and streamlined workflows, improving collaboration, speeding decisions and freeing the university to focus on growth and alumni engagement.

Zeppelin University

Christoph Andriessens

Head of Strategic IT Applications