[CRM filter] Can Salesforce do all these things for my nonprofit?

October 6, 2015 2:36 PM

I’m helping my nonprofit shop for a CRM! Along with all the other useful features of Salesforce (e.g. member/donor management, grant tracking, contact logs), we want to integrate volunteer management, program enrollment and more. Is Salesforce the answer? And some other questions...

I was the Accidental Admin for Salesforce in a past position, primarily around grant and member tracking and reporting. I understand the landscape and (at least a couple of years ago) could make basic customizations, nothing too sophisticated. I’m now with a nonprofit that has similar needs, but with far more to integrate. They’ve taken stabs at researching basic donor management systems and I’m picking up that ball with an eye toward a CRM that can do it all. I’m starting with Salesforce because it’s the one I know (but of course open to anything that can do all this, better).

Here’s what we need:

• All the nonprofit basics: Strong grant tracking, donor/contact management and reporting and good automated communication tracking (e.g. every contact reflects a record of all paper mailings, emails, phone calls) via a contact log of some kind (including a feature like bcc to Salesforce). Plus:
• Volunteer management. Not just internally (e.g. hours, skills, preferences), but also with an interface that is accessible to the public through our web site, with an easy calendar and simple job selection, all fairly intuitive, even for people who struggle with technology;
• Program enrollment. Must be integral with the web site for public enrollment in classes and workshops, educational summer camps, with all registrations dumping straight into contacts. And of course payment processing too.
• Event management. We have one giant event and many small ones. We are pretty tied to EventBrite for various reasons. Ideally I’d like to see Joe Smith be able to renew his membership at an event, verify his existing contact information and pay, all through the iPad, triggering a mailing, etc.--and eliminate a paper form for all but unusual cases.
• Financial integration with Sage. Maybe not now but definitely some day.

And the questions:

• Do most these things require additional tools from the AppExchange?
• If we choose Salesforce, I know we’d need to identify a Salesforce partner to guide us through the process. Apart from finding one in our region (PNW) with a great wealth of nonprofit experience, especially in the migration process, how do we pick?
• Is it possible to get a good understanding of how much this will cost before committing to one partner? Is it typical to design the shift in phases so we can seek out funding for various pieces of the integration (e.g. 1st: data needs assessment/cleanup/migration, 2nd: integrate with web site, 3rd: transition from Volunteer Matters to Volunteers for Salesforce, 4th: implement some kind of enrollment component)?
• So there’s NPSP, NGO Connect or straight customized Enterprise...what to choose?
• I know also there are stages at which it’s sometimes possible to engage Salesforce Administrators in a volunteer capacity, possibly even over the long term. How/when does or can that happen? Can it occur from the initial stages? Do we shop around to find someone who is a match to our mission? Do we post a request somewhere like the Power of Us Hub?

Thanks for any and all feedback!

posted by AnOrigamiLife to Technology (6 answers total)

Full disclosure, I used to work for a company, PatronManager, that sells basically exactly what you're asking for (a nonprofit CRM that runs on top of salesforce). If you're interested, meMail me and I can put you in touch. And actually, if you're not interested I'm still happy to talk to you further - I have a lot of opinions about various options.

But if you don't want to do that, I still have some answers.

I'd say the number one thing you want if you're looking for someone to help you get set up is that they have experience migrating data from whatever system you're using now. In my experience, this was always the hardest part about onboarding new clients.

NPSP is free, and it has volunteers for salesforce baked right in, so I'd say get that no matter what. Most of our clients also used it. You can probably get a decent sense of how much things will cost, but that will entail talking to a bunch of salespeople - nobody is just going to make that information publicly available.

For a SF admin volunteer, I'd try catchafire.org, which specifically matches tech people looking to volunteer their skills with companies like yours. You might also be able to get someone who wants to train to be a certified admin if you're willing to pay for their certification exam, which is like $100.
posted by Ragged Richard at 2:48 PM on October 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

Ragged Richard is right. You need a real administrative tool with a cheapie nimble CRM tacked on not the juggernaut that is Salesforce with a bunch of kludgy expensive apps added on. I use Hubspots CRM and it is...ok. Cost effective at least!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:42 PM on October 6, 2015

Response by poster: RaggedRichard, PatronManager does look interesting, and as it's built on Salesforce we'd be able to use Volunteers for Salesforce (plus probably integrate it with EventBrite and Click & Pledge that we already use). Curious to know how PatronManager might handle summer camps and classes because we aren't talking about theatre patrons, but kids and adults enrolling in programs where we'd need custom information, like ages and allergies and liability forms...which makes me wonder, is it possible to build a Visualforce page that captures everything that EventBrite might, including payment?

Awesome catchafire suggestion, thanks!

Also, I understand the juggernaut reference to Salesforce, but in my own experience with training most users get past that. Apart from the considerable up-front expense of migration and training, I'm not sure I understand the comments about cost. Salesforce is free for 10 seats, right? And the couple of apps we'd use are free too as far as I can tell. If customization is understood and handled in house, where is the expense?
posted by AnOrigamiLife at 4:57 PM on October 6, 2015

Here are some side-by-side comparisons that might help you.
posted by Short Attention Sp at 6:09 PM on October 6, 2015

Oh man, yeah, class registration is basically the hardest thing to make SalesForce do. We usually solved that problem by integrating a separate third-party solution and using our ticketing system to do payment processing. You've identified the biggest hurdle, which is integrating the payment processing with the information capture. When I was there, we often used formstack for the information capture side of things.
posted by Ragged Richard at 8:07 AM on October 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Wow, resolving this fell off my radar, sorry! Since I'm here to do that I may as well report that I made the recommendation to adopt Salesforce. Zero budget, so I suggested I tackle the implementation myself with the sole focus of replacing our antiquated donor management tool. I would not really develop it for any other purpose, though I'd always keep in mind our long-term organizational needs. I was given a green light. It was impossible to provide a timeline given that a) I have a job, it's half time, and Salesforce professional is not in my job description, b) full weeks pass where I can't even touch this project and c) I'm training myself.

I was able to begin actively using it four months in, though data migration happened in pieces. I'm rather proud of what I consider a pretty significant accomplishment, I love and value the HUB community. Couldn't have done it without them. I enjoy the platform and hope to develop it further. Next step is actually imparting to my org the value of what I've done, and the potential of the tool we now have to handle far more than donor management. I recommend Salesforce and appreciate its flexibility; I do think it can handle all of our needs, though I'd need to be full time to even attempt that kind of scope, and I'd still probably recommend hiring out the development of the more complex pieces.
posted by AnOrigamiLife at 10:10 PM on September 5, 2016