Note: This release refers to the Nonprofit Cloud product, not the Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP).
The Winter ’24 release is huge for Nonprofit Cloud!
If you’ve been following along with the Nonprofit Cloud (NPC) rollout, you know that so far NPC includes functionality for grantmaking, case management, and program management. The Winter ’24 release (which will be pushed to all orgs by October 23, 2023) includes many enhancements to these modules.
However, the true stars of the show in this release are the new, highly anticipated Fundraising and Outcome Management apps.
Let’s dive into these two exciting additions to NPC:
Fundraising
Nonprofit Cloud for Fundraising includes most of the fundraising features you know and use in NPSP, including the ability to:
- Log single gifts, or create gifts in bulk using Gift Entry
- Create, schedule, and manage gift commitments and installments
- Designate gifts to one or more funds
- Attribute soft credits to individuals or organizations who have influenced gifts
- Create and manage fundraising campaigns
Several new or enhanced features in NPC make it easier for staff to engage with and support donors and constituents.
In particular, the “high-touch fundraising” (or major giving) experience is enhanced in NPC – with a new, streamlined way for gift officers to view their portfolios, log notes about interactions (Interaction Summaries), and quickly see pertinent info about current and prospective donors’ relationships, affiliations, and life events.
On the operations front, a new Donor Support Profile view makes it easier for staff to respond to donor requests, such as changing commitment schedules for recurring donations, pausing or resuming commitments, and more.
I’m particularly excited about the enhancements to fundraising campaign management. Some organizations may be accustomed to assigning source codes to various appeals (especially direct mail). NPC has introduced this functionality natively with a Source Code object. Source Code records, which can be linked to campaigns, allow you to report on the success of appeals, messages, channels, and audiences in a more granular, comprehensive way.
Finally, another exciting addition to NPC is an out-of-the-box Accounting Subledger integration. Accounting Subledger allows for easier reconciliation between Salesforce fundraising data and your accounting system. The enhanced NPC-Accounting Subledger connection allows for both simple and complex reconciliation activities and helps to streamline collaboration between your fundraising and finance teams. Account Subledger Growth edition is included in NPC; be sure to speak with your Salesforce Account Executive if you have any questions.
It’s worth noting that Fundraising in NPC uses a new data model that, on the surface, is quite different from NPSP.
Most significant is the addition of two new objects for tracking gifts (alongside our old friend, Opportunities):
- Opportunity = An opportunity for a large gift (grant; planned gift; other major gift)
- Gift Commitment = A commitment to a gift that hasn’t been fully received yet (recurring donations; grants with payments; pledges; planned gifts with payments)
- Gift Transaction = The actual payment or gift received (recurring donation installment; one-time gift; pledge payment)
While this architectural change may feel daunting at first, these new objects allow for a more precise way to track various types of gifts and payments.
It’s clear that Salesforce has attempted to retain as much popular NPSP functionality as possible in NPC while adding and enhancing some much-needed and often-requested features.
Outcome Management
The next major update in the Winter ’24 Nonprofit Cloud release is the introduction of Outcome Management.
Outcome Management is a new tool that allows organizations to define, measure, and evaluate program outcomes all in one place, and easily share results with stakeholders.
For example, let’s say your organization provides financial literacy programs for adults. Some of your intended outcomes (or the changes you’d expect to see for participants as a result of your program activities) may include increased savings, reduced debt, and higher earnings.
In the past, you may have provided funders and stakeholders with basic output data to show your impact (for example, the number of participants enrolled). But what if you could move beyond reporting on outputs to reporting on outcomes?
A more comprehensive, detailed outcome tracking inherently lends itself to the ability to make more strategic, insightful organizational decisions and investments.
Like Fundraising, Outcome Management comes with a preconfigured app and homepage designed for at-a-glance views of performance indicators:
With a new data model connected to Program Management objects, Outcome Management allows organizations to:
- Collect information from participants before, during, and after program activities
- Define and group outcomes
- Connect outcomes to programs and benefits
- Establish a consistent library of indicators your organization cares about for easy reuse
- Use time-bound indicator performance periods to track your starting point and where you aim to get to when measuring your efforts
- And more!
With the Winter ’24 release, the Nonprofit Cloud truly becomes a hub for an organization’s activities and data – funds, stakeholders, programs, outcomes, and engagement, all in one place. To read the full Nonprofit Cloud release notes, click here.
