The past twelve months have been a period of many changes in the Salesforce ecosystem for nonprofits. If you are a casual observer, you may have missed some altogether. Even if you are actively engaged, you may feel unsure about the current state of things. I know that has felt true for me at times. I think it is safe to say there has been more significant change in the past 12 months than in any of the other 15 years I’ve been in this ecosystem.
As someone who has built a career and a business helping nonprofits navigate Salesforce, here is my take on the current state of Salesforce for nonprofits across three areas: Product, Partners, and People.
Understanding the Product
The New Nonprofit Cloud
One year ago, on March 14, 2023, Salesforce made the announcement that it would be releasing a brand new set of solutions for nonprofits, called Nonprofit Cloud (NPC). This solution would be designed to take the place of practically everything that had come before it – Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP), Program Management Model, Nonprofit Cloud Case Management, Grants Management, and so on. While these former solutions would not be discontinued, they would take a back seat to the new generation.
The first release of NPC last March included Program and Case Management, with a new Grantmaking solution released in the summer, and Fundraising and Outcome Measurement in the fall. While each Salesforce seasonal release has introduced updates and enhancements, the primary components of NPC that Salesforce announced a year ago are now in place.
Why Has Salesforce Made This Change?
This is an effort to bring product development for the nonprofit sector into alignment with Salesforce’s product development for other industries. In prior years, when Salesforce.org was a separate entity from Salesforce, it made more sense (and perhaps was the only feasible option) for Salesforce.org to develop its products independently, as managed packages.
Since 2019, when Salesforce acquired Salesforce.org, the two entities have become much more integrated. Now they are essentially a single entity, and the new industry cloud approach to nonprofit products is indicative of that.
Is This a Good Thing for Nonprofits?
For me, the answer to this question is yes and no. Yes, it is good in that this now opens up the possibility for nonprofits to benefit from innovation and investments being made by Salesforce across various industry sectors. For example, capabilities built into the initial NPC release for human services case management were based upon functionality previously built for the healthcare and public sector verticals. This industry alignment provides a more assured path for nonprofits to continue to have viable solutions from Salesforce.
However, there are a few ways that this move may not be good for individual nonprofits:
Cost: While Salesforce is still offering ten free licenses of NPC, just as it did for NPSP, the cost of the base Enterprise Edition license has increased from $36 per user per month to $60 per user per month. Yes, there is additional functionality with NPC, but it may or may not be worth it depending on an organization’s needs.
Complexity: NPC has greater complexity than the prior generation, with more complex data models and more “technical” features that will require more know-how to implement and maintain. For some nonprofits, this complexity means they can now do more advanced things with Salesforce in service of their missions. For other nonprofits, it will be overkill and a burden.
Compatibility: While borrowing product features from other industries has accelerated Salesforce’s ability to bring NPC to market, it also means that these features may not perfectly align with the ways nonprofits work. This may require additional workarounds or customizations for a given nonprofit.
Also, despite the new capabilities of NPC, nonprofits will still need to look to third-party solutions from independent software vendors (ISVs) for things like online donation and payment processing, event registration, and volunteer management. Some ISVs have already released NPC-compatible versions of their apps, but the number is still relatively small compared to the apps that are NPSP-compatible. As time goes by and more organizations are on NPC, app vendors will have to decide if it makes sense to continue to build and support features for NPSP.
Confusion: Now that there are two separate but overlapping Salesforce solutions for nonprofits, it has become confusing to understand what is relevant to which when it comes to product announcements, support resources, online forums, ISV apps, consulting services, and staff skills.
Currently, nearly all nonprofits are on NPSP, so most of what is out there pertain to them. However, the information coming from Salesforce and its consulting partners will be NPC-focused, so this situation is likely to get worse.
Conversion: Nonprofits who want to be on the cheaper, simpler, more proven NPSP can still opt to do so. Salesforce has said they will continue to support NPSP, and there has been no announcement made about sunsetting. But make no mistake – NPSP is now the “old” version. Also, there is no such thing as a “push-button” upgrade, nor is there likely to be.
The guidance from Salesforce is that moving from NPSP to NPC is a full re-implementation and migration. So for nonprofits that want to be on the current generation of Salesforce for nonprofits, there will be the cost of conversion sooner or later.
To summarize
- NPC is now the go-forward solution for nonprofits, with a large degree of feature parity to NPSP, plus new capabilities.
- NPSP is still available for new and existing customers.
- Organizations on NPSP can, but do not need to, move to NPC. Moving to NPC is a re-implementation, not an upgrade.
Other Changes
Beyond the introduction of NPC, there were a couple of other product developments for nonprofits:
- Sunsetting of Elevate: In April, 2023, Salesforce announced that it would be sunsetting Elevate, the online donation and transaction processing product it released in 2020. New sales ended in October 2023, and the product will be shut down in October 2024.
- Data Cloud and Tableau: At Dreamforce 2023, Salesforce announced that all Enterprise Edition and above customers would receive free introductory-level access to Data Cloud as well as two free Tableau licenses. While not a fit for every nonprofit, this provides a no-cost (at least no license cost) way for nonprofits who are ready to begin to get their feet wet with these advanced capabilities.#
Understanding Your Partners
Elimination of Nonprofit Partner Network
Another big change in the past 12 months was the elimination by Salesforce.org of its consulting partner network which, since 2015, had fostered a vetted set of firms aligned with nonprofits.
This means that rather than having a single list of all the firms that had met Salesforce.org’s criteria for serving nonprofits, nonprofits now have to look elsewhere to understand which partners are best equipped to serve them.
The good news is that there is a large and growing pool of partners if you know where and how to look. Based on the data I have been collecting and analyzing for the past five years, there are somewhere between 300 and 400 firms globally that have a nonprofit focus and/or qualifications, out of the over 2,700 on the AppExchange.
NPC vs. NPSP Partners
One additional consideration, however, is that just as Nonprofit Cloud is new to nonprofits, it is also new to all the consultants that serve nonprofits. So any potential consultant a nonprofit may work with is going to have limited experience with NPC compared to NPSP, and some consultants may have no NPC experience yet at all.
Just how many consulting firms have begun working with NPC? And how many implementations have been started or finished? I am in the process of surveying partners now to shed light on those questions. If you are a consulting partner, you can take this short survey to indicate your NPC experience so far. I will be presenting the results as part of an SF Ben LinkedIn Live on April 4.
Regardless, nonprofits needing consulting services will now need to get clarity about whether they are adopting NPC or NPSP, and whether their prospective partners are bringing the necessary experience to the table.
Understanding the People
This final section is a catch-all for the current state of things affecting the actual people doing the Salesforce work for nonprofits, whether as nonprofit staff members or volunteers or as consultants or app makers.
Learning Resources and Documentation
For those looking to get smart about the new Nonprofit Cloud, here are some of the best resources:
- Salesforce’s Nonprofit Cloud Recommendation Map consolidates resources such as Trailhead modules, documentation, and guides in a step-by-step way for those looking to learn about or implement the new Nonprofit Cloud.
- All help documentation for Nonprofit Cloud is organized here (while NPSP documentation is organized separately here).
- Join the Nonprofit Cloud Trailblazer group If you want to ask questions and track issues and lessons learned from those using NPC.
- New Trailhead modules have been created for Nonprofit Cloud, but it can be a bit challenging in Trailhead to distinguish the modules for NPC vs. NPSP by name alone. Fortunately, Salesforce has added a yellow information box at the top of many modules to clarify which product they relate to. The Recommendation Map mentioned above is an easier way to find NPC-specific trails.
Note: Be aware that any content you come across prior to March 2023, even if it refers to “Nonprofit Cloud”, is about the older generation of products and may not still be relevant to the new Nonprofit Cloud.
Also, unrelated to the introduction of Nonprofit Cloud, in January 2023 a new site was launched by the Open Source Commons called Sprinty’s Community Resources. It bills itself as “the ultimate community-submitted list of resources for using Salesforce in a nonprofit/education context.” and now has over 100 items in its curated library.
Certifications
The Nonprofit Cloud Consultant certification still remains the primary certification focused on implementing Salesforce for nonprofits. However, it has not yet been updated for the new Nonprofit Cloud (despite the name), and Salesforce has not announced a timeline for doing so. If you encounter a consultant with that certification or are thinking about earning it yourself, just know that the technical learnings still center on NPSP and related products.
With the introduction of NPC, which includes OmniStudio as one of the industry common components, the OmniStudio Consultant certification is suddenly relevant to nonprofits and is generally underrepresented among consulting firms in the sector, so it could be a good option for specialization. With Data Cloud now being an available option for nonprofits, the Data Cloud Consultant certification, announced in September 2023, is another option for specialization, especially for those working with larger nonprofits. Finally, what look back at the past 12 months would be complete without mentioning AI? Salesforce also announced the AI Associate certification in September.
Jobs
The news about jobs in the Salesforce ecosystem has been, at best, mixed over the past year, with layoffs at consulting firms, ISVs, and Salesforce itself. While there is no specific data that I know of about the prevalence and trends of Salesforce-related jobs in the nonprofit ecosystem, there are a few good resources for Salesforce job seekers to be aware of:
- Nonprofit and Education Jobs Trailblazer group: This group has been around for a while and lets you find and post Salesforce-related jobs with nonprofits and their ecosystem partners.
- Trailblazer Career Marketplace: Launched in December 2023, Salesforce’s portal for job seekers and employers is currently limited to around 100 employers, all of whom are Salesforce partners. However, it does have the ability to filter both job seekers and employers by industry, including nonprofits.
- Watt’s List Consulting Jobs page: This resource is updated monthly with open positions from among the more than 100 consulting firms that serve nonprofits.
Community
Fortunately, not much has changed about the Salesforce nonprofit community. It is still thriving as ever. This community remains unrivaled in its depth and breadth among technology companies in the nonprofit sector. Here are a couple of key aspects to be aware of:.
- User Groups: 86 Salesforce nonprofit user groups are meeting regularly all over the world, from Australia, to the US and Canada, to Europe, to India. I’m proud to be a co-leader of my local group in Richmond, Virginia. Many of these groups also meet virtually, so if you don’t have a user group close by, you can attend the virtual meetings of other groups. The list of upcoming meetings can also be found at the above link.
- Online Community: There are 41 different groups tagged to Nonprofit in the Trailblazer Community, with the largest, The Nonprofit Hub, having over 14,000 members. If Slack is more your thing, the community-led Ohana Slack includes a Nonprofit channel with over 600 members.
Events
Salesforce events continue to offer content and resources for nonprofits. This includes the regional World Tours, TrailblazerDX, Connections, as well as Dreamforce, though the focus on nonprofits at Dreamforce has been waning since 2019 when Salesforce acquired Salesforce.org. Depending on the location, recent World Tours have included an expo hall booth for Nonprofit Cloud and a session or two focused on nonprofits. Again, keep in mind that these are now primarily NPC-focused.
Community-led Dreamin’ events can also be good places to connect with the nonprofit ecosystem. The best example is Nonprofit Dreamin’, with an exclusive focus on nonprofits. This event drew hundreds of participants to Chicago in November 2023. But even Dreamin’ events without an explicit nonprofit focus often feature sessions, speakers, vendors, and attendees with nonprofit connections. This was definitely true for Dreamin’ In Color, which I had the privilege to attend for the past two years. See the full list of global Dreamin’ events and check agendas for details.
Finally, for those who want to get hands-on with their peers in creating and enhancing solutions for the nonprofit sector, the Community Sprints are still going strong. Upcoming sprints include one in Newcastle upon Tyne, England March 20–21 on Affordable Housing and on April 26 in New York, the day after the New York World Tour. Join this Salesforce.org Commons and Sprint Events Trailblazer Group to stay informed.
Summary
After a year of significant changes, the state of Salesforce for Nonprofits has grown more complex. But this ecosystem still offers so many possibilities and opportunities for those who want to see this technology used in service of a thriving nonprofit sector, empowering the causes that make our world a better place.
Have questions or want to dig a little deeper? Please join me in the upcoming SF Ben LinkedIn Live on April 4.