The Salesforce Foundation is offering nonprofit and educational organizations 10 donated licenses of the Salesforce Enterprise edition. You can choose from two different configurations of their product donation – Salesforce CRM or Salesforce CRM + Nonprofit Starter Pack (Salesforce recently released NGO Connect, read about it here). What is the difference? Which version is right for your organization?
The stand alone Salesforce CRM is the “out of the box” edition that is generally geared towards the business world. With that being said, Salesforce is an extremely flexible platform and it can be customized to meet your nonprofit’s mission and needs. The “generic” Salesforce CRM configuration provides your organization with full control over your database; however, it might take more time (and money) to tailor it to support your operations.
What is the Nonprofit Starter Pack?
The Nonprofit Starter Pack (NPSP) was created to help nonprofit organizations use Salesforce. It was built to extend the functionalities of the standard Salesforce CRM to nonprofits in addition to supporting common business processes across social change organizations. It currently includes five managed packages. Each package consists of custom fields, custom objects, reports, workflows, page layouts, Force.com Code (Apex) and VisualForce pages.
So what are the different packages?
1.Contacts and Organizations Package – manage relationships with organizations and individuals (contact-to-contact). For example, with participants, students, or volunteers.
2.Household Package – group people who live in the same household.
3.Recurring Donations Package – track donations pledged over time.
4.Relationship Package – manage key relationships (family, friend, acquaintance, co-worker) between individuals.
5.Affiliations Package – track individual’s affiliations to organizations. For example, John Smith can be an employee of ACME Corporation and a board member at Save the Whale.
Pros:
- Out of the box solution that addresses key nonprofit needs
- Allows managing relationships with individuals, not only organizations
- No need to update when code changes or bugs are fixed
- Can be uninstalled easily
Cons:
- Every organization is different; it might not fit to your needs
- It is managed; certain components are locked and cannot be configurable
- Individual module (one-to-one) is very limited
- Does not support Person Account
- Installation is complex
Implementation and Training Costs
Whether you choose the NPSP or standard Salesforce CRM, you will likely require some assistance with customization, data migration, adoption, and training. The actual cost will vary depending on your needs, the number of staff that will be trained, your data, and complexity of business processes. If the NPSP addresses your core needs it may require less customization than the standard Salesforce solution.
You Can’t Go Wrong
The Foundation enables you to sign up for a 30-day trial before you make a decision. If you are not sure, try both before you apply for the donation. Ready to get your hands on? Click here to sign up
Please remember that with either template you choose, there may be a number of things to configure, there is no magical solution. Salesforce is one of the most flexible web-based solutions available on the market and it can be customized to meet your needs.
Still not sure? Contact us to consult which template will be right for your organization. We provide one hour of FREE consultation for nonprofit organizations.
