Introduction to Salesforce NPSP:
A Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack (Salesforce NPSP) is a suite of packages that may be added to the Salesforce Platform (Enterprise or Ultimate Editions) for configuring the Salesforce customer relationship management system to better serve non-profit organizations.
Salesforce was introduced in the late 90s, with its unique way of dealing with data. However, its CRM was initially designed around businesses’ monetary needs, so non-profits were left without a suitable option.
This is where NPSP comes in. This smartly devised adaptation of Salesforce’s CRM addresses the issue by making data management simple and useful for those working with non-profits. Understanding how donors relate to households and corporations linked to them, managing campaigns and programs, as well as nonprofit-specific ventures such as grant allocations is what this is all about.
And now let us answer one important question: Is Salesforce Free for Nonprofits? Yes at first. In an offer called “10+20,” salesforce’s NPSP gives away 10 licenses for free, with access to their CRM and a standard storage allocation. This platform is completely free for small nonprofits that have less than ten users and require little space, thus providing relief to resource-constrained organizations.
However, more prominent non-profits may have to invest in additional licenses and storage beyond the initial offering. Furthermore, there is also the consideration of supplementary apps or enhancements needed to customize NPSP instances for the non-profit’s unique needs.
Therefore, due to Salesforce’s NPSP being so all-encompassing, it makes sense to bring on a nonprofit technology consultant who is well-versed with this platform. This partnership streamlines the migration method, tailors configuration to particular necessities, and offers training to the employees;
But now let us talk briefly about what Integrates with Salesforce NPSP. One of the highlights of Salesforce’s NPSP adoption is its considerable variety of applications and enhancements that may be accessed from the Salesforce AppExchange. These tools can be used by a wide gamut of non-profit undertakings, boosting initiatives around fund-raising as well as stewardship and advocacy campaigns.
The AppExchange provides a multitude of seamlessly integrated tools with Salesforce NPSP which fall into two broad categories:
- Individual tools and integrations: Such apps or plug-ins focus on particular functions like online donation collection & wealth-screening(including identifying matching gift opportunities). This category also includes integrations between Salesforce and other applications not directly tied to the platform.
- Comprehensive overlays: These managed apps offer a complete suite of functionality at once.The AppExchange offers solutions corresponding to any functionality or gap in the nonprofit tech stack, all designed to seamlessly integrate with NPSP.
What Constitutes the Salesforce NPSP Data Model?
In addition to its extensive range of native apps and integrations, Salesforce’s NPSP is renowned for its exemplary data management capabilities.
For understanding Salesforce’s core CRM, an understanding of the organization of data by Salesforce is crucial:
• Objects: These are akin to spreadsheets for tracking information related to various parameters of operations. The most important ones are accounts, contacts, opportunities, and campaigns which offer the option of creating custom objects when required.
• Fields: These are sub-sets within objects and are similar to column headers in a worksheet, organizing data within the object.
• Records: These are individual entries within object tables and equivalent rows within spreadsheets.
NPSP builds on this standard data model, enhancing it to help nonprofits meet some key requirements:
• Multiple addresses for accounts and contacts.
• Affiliations to record relationships between contacts and organizations.
• Deliverables to track requirements and deadlines for opportunities.
• Engagement Plan to automate moves’ management based on templates, assigning tasks and milestones to staff based on specified criteria.
• General Accounting Units track general ledger funds and gift designations.
• Levels categorize contact records based on given criteria for segmentation and targeted stewardship.
• Payments track payment details for gifts made toward an opportunity.
• Recurring Donations track gifts made on a repeating basis.
• Relationships understand connections between contact records.
• Soft Credits and Solicitor Credits attribute credit for gifts to contacts not directly donating.
• Batch Gift Entry enables bulk entry of items into the system with preset values.
Moreover, NPSP offers various functionalities consisting of a volunteer control module, permitting nonprofits to create custom fields and reports to align with their specific purposes such as fundraising, etc.
Salesforce NPSP Features:
1. Donor Management: With the Salesforce data model, NPSP allows you to create deep supporter profiles and see a full picture of your supporters. It helps track contact information, demographics, interests of donors, relationships between them, households they belong to, business affiliations, and others. Donor management and donation management capacities simplify keeping track of various sorts of gifts and making plan templates for engagement that are consistent with stewardship.
2. Volunteer Management: NPSP is designed to help you manage volunteer involvement from recruitment to an ongoing level using the Volunteers for Salesforce app for monitoring volunteers’ hours, assignments, and sign-ups. Managing the entire process of scheduling volunteers is made easy with NPSP, enhancing their experience.
3. Grant Management: the incoming grants management with NPSP becomes as simple as possible. Being provided with a set of tools for managing grant issues, like establishing grant maker accounts or tracking probable grants, the system takes the struggle out of the following: convening a list of deliverables that are related to the grant, accounting for payment schedules, and assigning funds where they are supposed to be invested.
4. Campaign Management: NPSP offers an array of very useful marketing and fundraising tools that help nonprofits in managing their marketing and fundraising campaigns. One of the most powerful tools of marketing is the ability of an organization to sort, aggregate, and collapse targeted individuals based on programs, initiatives, and responses, and track success rates and ROI. This promotes not only a constant evaluation but also a continuous improvement of the programs of the nonprofits for better results.
5. Program Management: Project Management offered by NPSP translates itself as a new chapter for charitable organizations that are striving to be more operational. PMM becomes a tool that enables organizations to oversee the dispersal of resources for different programs as it surveys the results, creating avenues for the customization of each program’s aspects, schedules, and service deliveries. Nonprofits can keep their resources organized and strategically aligned through NPSP. In this way, they can work towards their mission in an efficient and impactful manner.
6. Reporting and Analytics: NPSP provides nonprofit organizations with extremely powerful reporting and analytics capacities. This helps them to obtain information related to their supporter behaviors, their database gaps, as well as their fundraising effectiveness. From quick-start reports to customizable dashboards, NPSP provides its clients with the devices needed to drive better strategy and monitor their results moving forward. NPSP for nonprofits uses data as a powerful tool in their mission to bring about change and become even more effective.
Key Benefits of NPSP for Nonprofits:
1. Open-Source Platform: NPSP is an open-source tool, which gives organizations the option to fine-tune the software in their own ways to meet their particular requirements. Also, NPSP is frequently enhanced and improved, therefore while offering the most innovative features and facilities, it assists non-profits with meeting their goals.
2. Scalability: Besides scaling, NPSP delivers flexibility which would allow non-profits at any level to work with them. Regardless of whether you are a small local NGO in the growth phase or a large privately funded organization on its way to international expansion, NPSP can perfectly fit your needs and expand as necessary—thus replacing the classic situation of migration and leading to a long-term trusted solution for the CRM organization scale.
3. Marketplace of Tools: The recently launched version of NPSP makes it possible to tweak third-party apps offered at the AppExchange store without a hitch. NPSP provides nonprofits with a plethora of tools that are very useful in fundraising, marketing, and volunteer tracking. Additionally, they can use the pack in donor management too and this can help them drive a more meaningful change.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Salesforce NPSP offers a comprehensive CRM solution tailored for nonprofit organizations. With its extensive features, data management capabilities, and scalability, NPSP empowers nonprofits to achieve their mission more effectively and efficiently. Through integration with Salesforce AppExchange and customization options, nonprofits can enhance their operations and drive meaningful impact in their communities.
**Disclaimer: Images used in this article have been downloaded from freepik.com for illustrative purposes only.
