In the past year, it seems more and more nonprofits and higher ed advancement teams have made the switch to Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP). The impact of COVID-19 forced many to seekout technology solutions that fit the unique needs for work from home and mobile access. For others, concerns about security capabilities was the primary driver. Even if these aren’t the primary drivers for your organization, here are some things to think about when considering a move from other fundraising and relationship management platforms to Salesforce NPSP.
Consolidate your Technology Tools
Many organizations rely on point solutions as a stop-gap to fulfill a specific need; spreadsheets for reporting, a mass email tool to send communications, an event tool to manage events and cloud-based solutions to
collect and manage constituent information. Because some of the industry’s leading solutions do not integrate easily with other tools, the systems aren’t talking to each other and teams are navigating through siloed data.
Those that have already invested in solutions and are depending on platform updates often face the reality that new product updates aren’t addressing many of the functionality gaps from the legacy system. With native CRM and automation features and extended technology through the AppExchange, we have helped our clients move towards an enterprise system that consolidated tools and data into a single source of truth.
Data Security, Accessibility and Reporting
Prominent security breaches in the industry have been a wake-up call for many teams. While information security is something that all organizations need to manage regardless of what technology they use, Salesforce provides secure servers with access to data backups as well as resources to help adhere to new privacy laws such as GDPR. Features such as permission sets and sharing rules allow organizations to customize their Salesforce data access unique to their business needs.
Reporting and access to data is also important. Salesforce natively has reporting and dashboard capabilities that provide end-users easy access to view and analyze real-time data – which presents a challenge for some of Salesforce’s leading competitors given administrators are required to run queries.
Extended Technology and Resources
In the past 10+ years Salesforce has upped its nonprofit game most notably with the launch of Nonprofit Cloud in 2018. We’ve already referenced the AppExchange and how applications available can extend native Salesforce technology to better address your Nonprofit-specific requirements. Some of these apps (such as Volunteers for Salesforce) are free and almost all of the paid apps offer discounts for nonprofits. There are a host of other resources specifically focused to support nonprofit organizations including communities, local groups, and Trailhead (free training). This is especially useful for small organizations where staff wear many hats and don’t have a dedicated technology team.
Have more questions about making the move to Nonprofit Success Pack? Connect with us via email (bookin@elevation.solutions) or through our website.
