Salesforce for Nonprofits: Did You Know It’s Free?

Author: Lorena Mosquera Category: Industry, Nonprofit Date: October 4, 2022

Did you know Salesforce is free to nonprofits?

Yes, you read that correctly!

Salesforce offers a free Nonprofit Success Pack featuring the core Salesforce Sales Cloud CRM platform that has been configured for nonprofit use. It includes everything nonprofits need to streamline their processes and centralize important data. It gives you donation tracking, moves management (recording donor touch points), pledge and recurring gift tracking, and relationship management, just to name a few benefits.

Even with all of that, many nonprofits avoid Salesforce. Why? Because they have heard it is complicated and overwhelming. And of course, that’s the last thing nonprofits have time and energy for!

They’re not wrong. Salesforce can be complicated and overwhelming. However, it is possible to simplify this tool so it can be successfully implemented and adopted into your organization. And, if planned properly the features that Salesforce offers allow organizations to scale with it in the long term.

If you want to leverage Salesforce in your organization, but want to keep it simple to start, consider these steps:

• Strip it! Salesforce has a lot of bells and whistles, many of which you may not need, especially as you are getting familiar with using it. Strip it to its basics, do an assessment of what will be helpful, and implement only what you currently need. You can always add more later.
• Plan for growth. Start small, but don’t plan to stay small. Consider running an assessment and mapping strategy so you can plan for future growth.
• Scale over time. Allow the technology to build around your organization and people, not the other way around. Once users adopt the system in small bites, you can build in layers to improve automation and capture strong data.

Salesforce really is an amazing tool. It can help you now (if your start with the basics!), yet it is scalable and can grow with you, if you do the proper upfront planning.

Do you want to learn more about what Salesforce can do for your nonprofit? Schedule a consultation with a workflow strategist who specializes in working with nonprofit organizations.