Multi-Country Rollout of Salesforce to Support Workforce Development in the Middle East and North Africa

Education For Employment’s (EFE) mission is simple: to create economic opportunities for unemployed youth in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), allowing them to create a brighter future for themselves, their families, and their communities. In pursuit of this mission, EFE has become the leading nonprofit training MENA youth and linking them to jobs in a region with the largest youth population and the highest youth unemployment rates in the world. Through a global network operating in nine countries across the MENA region, EFE trains young people with the skills necessary to succeed in work and life and then matches the next generation of ready-to-work talent with businesses in need of qualified employees.

From Spreadsheets to Salesforce

Technology plays an inherently important role for organizations, such as EFE, connecting offices worldwide through a central system. Prior to adopting Salesforce, EFE was without a scalable database solution, relying instead on Excel spreadsheets to record and share organization data. “We needed a strong database solution that enabled security controls and united our data,” said Ashley Barry, Director of Strategy and Learning at EFE.

This critical need led EFE to Cloud for Good in pursuit of Salesforce implementation services that could build and configure a system capable of tracking and managing EFE workforce development efforts. The Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) provided EFE with the ability to track their many company relationships, empower staff to communicate and leverage shared knowledge, and build a stronger fundraising foundation.

The implementation began with EFE-US and EFE-Jordan. An initial solution was built on the Salesforce platform to provide a framework for managing relationships and basic process automation. The solution allowed EFE staff to carry out their day-to-day activities more efficiently and strengthen student, donor, and partner management. At the same time, a foundation was being laid for all other EFE Affiliates across the MENA region to plug into the new unified system and further build on the organization’s Salesforce efforts.

Following the initial EFE-Jordan implementation, Salesforce was intentionally rolled out to the rest of the EFE Network one country at a time. Less than four years later, the vast majority of EFE’s network now benefits from the power of Salesforce.

Rethinking Business Processes

After placement within a job, the newly employed youth graduates are surveyed on what employer they are working for, the sector of that employer, whether they’re working full or part-time, and how satisfied they are with the quality of the job. “Salesforce has allowed us to significantly increase our understanding of the jobs we place youth into in the Middle East and North Africa,” said Barry. With streamlined reporting, EFE can now provide more individualized support to the youth they serve while also allowing the organization to perform data quality checks quickly and efficiently to inform continual configuration.

“We can now log into the database across multiple countries and be looking at the same record simultaneously, which is something we weren’t previously able to do,” said Barry. “It’s been a real game-changer for us. Student, donor, and partner management have been unified across EFE locations, and reporting has been immensely simplified, allowing the organization to individualize better and streamline our processes. Salesforce has given us the opportunity to work in a much more coordinated way,” said Barry.

Business processes across EFE offices have been completely reimagined through Salesforce. It’s also paved the way for innovations through integrations, like one with FormAssembly for sophisticated information-gathering surveys. This integration allows EFE to glean information vital to the long-term health of EFE programs and the career tracks of MENA youth.

education for employment salesforce npsp — Quotes from Education For Employment’s Director of Strategy and Learning Ashley Barry.

Unifying EFE Efforts Across the Globe

Removing data silos and communication barriers through the seamless nature of Salesforce has allowed EFE to better focus efforts on the fundamentals of their business. Partnerships, securing funding, and spending more time placing MENA youth into fulfilling, sustainable employment are all made possible by the organization’s Salesforce solutions. EFE’s efforts are supported, more than ever before, by its system of record in allowing heightened analysis of outcomes data and improvement of overall business processes. Both across the EFE Network and at the individual Affiliate level, EFE is able to make a greater impact through Salesforce technology.

“The main indicator of success is that we have so much data that we simply did not have before,” said Barry. “We’re working in a very qualitatively different way than before. I feel like there’s even more we can accomplish now that we understand the power of Salesforce through what we’ve learned from Cloud for Good.”

After the first implementation with EFE-Jordan, Salesforce was gradually rolled out across EFE Affiliates in Tunisia, Morocco, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Yemen, and United Arab Emirates. A measured approach helped positively impact user adoption of Salesforce through an iterative process encouraging continual refinement of the solution. “It gave us a chance to roll it out, learn from each experience, and then continue that learning with each new rollout of Salesforce to each new country,” said Barry.

Throughout this expansion, Cloud for Good Managed Services helped ease transitions, train staff, and build capacity. “Managed Services has been a critical tool for us to refine the solution further and learn how to make it our own within EFE,” said Barry. “What brought us to Cloud for Good, and what’s kept us working with the company, is the partnership we’ve been able to build together. There’s an effort to understand the client needs and take a human-centered design approach to building the solution.”

After years of constant advancement and expansion, EFE’s Salesforce org is now finely tuned and customized, with even more potential available to continue building workflows that impact coordination and effectiveness. The organization is looking to launch donor surveys to inform fundraising strategies, introduce a new feature helping to track youth attendance at MENA job fairs, as well as create strategy tracking tools to unite the EFE Network even further.

“I’m most proud that we’ve been able to work to get our org to meet the needs of EFE at a customized level,” said Barry. “I would highly recommend Cloud for Good. The teams are dedicated and take the time to listen to clients’ needs and work closely to find solutions.”