For over 35,000 fundraisers, the Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) has been a reliable and effective solution. However, the emergence of the Nonprofit Cloud (NPC) has left fundraisers and Salesforce partners alike just a tad unsure.
What impact will this have on the organization and its back pocket? The rollout has felt a little like upgrading your car while cruising down the highway, and yet the new engine has undeniable horsepower. The question in many minds right now is: When is the right time to climb aboard?
Spring ’24 Release Brings Significant Functionality
For organizations wanting to start using NPC for their fundraising operations, the Spring ’24 release is what they’ve been waiting for. With the move from the managed package (NPSP) to core (NPC), this has been a complete rebuild for the Nonprofit team at Salesforce – and although we’ve had to wait for them, the promises have been big.
Now, as those promises are beginning to be delivered, those of us who have been lucky enough to peek under the hood are excited by the possibilities. Most of the functionality of NPSP has been matched or exceeded, with only a few essential items still on the to-do list.
If the Winter ’24 release was the most momentous step forward for NPC, the Spring ’24 release is the one that opens the door to adopting the product. The introduction of the key features of business process API, payment instrument, and Experience Cloud compatibility has moved NPC from something to watch from a distance to the ride you want to be in.
NPC Is Now More Powerful and Effective Than NPSP
Being built on core, NPC provides far greater flexibility and capacity than NPSP ever could. There are a few enhancements that get me most excited for fundraisers. These are as follows:
Campaign Management
With some significant changes in campaign management, NPC embraces the new world in which fundraising utilizes technology more than ever before. With the introduction of source codes and interest tags, campaign data can be broken down not only with better segmentation but also by communication channels, optimizing the analysis of the marketing strategy.
It will also be possible to generate a URL for any campaign to utilize, improving both the efficiency and effectiveness of campaigns. On top of this, upgrade campaigns can finally be rewarded with the attributions they deserve when a recurring donation is increased without severing the attribution of the original campaign.
Batch Management
Mass market fundraisers will be over the moon at the functionality afforded by the batch management of NPC. Templated flows provide the structure and flexibility for organizations to work fast at high volumes. Gift entry via batches is an absolute game-changer.
Donor Engagement
NPC also takes donor engagement to the next level. Not only does it leverage the functionality built in NPSP and utilize advancements in AI to identify key donor data, but the presentation of this data is lightyears ahead of where NPSP took off.
The timeline feature, for example, allows a fundraiser to glance at the major moments in a donor’s life as they relate to their giving, providing instant information to enhance a superior donor experience. Add in the fact that NPC comes with access to OmniStudio, and fundraisers are about to get a whole lot better at donor engagement.
Be Aware of the Gaps
Despite the progress that has been made in NPC, there are still some gaps that fundraisers will experience. The most notable is in the space of payment processing. Similar to NPSP, Nonprofit Cloud doesn’t support payment processing from within Salesforce, and from what I can tell, there are no plans to do this in the future. As fundraising is all about the funds, this is a significant barrier that must be overcome by fundraisers looking to use this product.
Some other important components that are missing include recurring donation entry, receipt generation, and address management. However, with NPC still being so fresh, one would imagine these features can’t be too far away.
What Is Needed to Make It Work Now?
Despite the gaps in NPC, one of the best new additions in the Spring ‘24 release is the introduction of the business process API (BPAPI). This powerful component enables third parties to provide inputs that will be processed into NPC with ease. The implications? The right Salesforce partner or third-party product can start filling in the gaps now.
If you can find a product built for NPC, such as PosiPay, that can manage operations such as payment processing and recurring donation entry, then you can be set up for NPC very quickly. And with the migration path from NPSP to NPC becoming clearer and clearer, now is the time to begin the conversation.
Summary
With the Spring ’24 release, NPC leapfrogs NPSP to be the most functional fundraising product Salesforce offers.
With enhanced features that far exceed NPSP and a BPAPI to integrate with third-party tools, now is the time to investigate starting the NPC journey for fundraisers. Nonprofit Cloud will be the market leader from now on and is only going to get better in time. Time to climb aboard!