Is Salesforce The Right Volunteer Management Solution
It doesn’t matter what industry you operate in; everybody knows about Salesforce. Used by more than 150,000 companies, the cloud-based system offers all the bells and whistles from marketing, volunteer management, to managing your website content, Salesforce is a behemoth. It’s an incredible product, but it’s not for everyone. In the early days of Lineup, we even used Salesforce to track the progress of the relationships we were building. Salesforce is built for companies like ours in theory, but the whole point of switching to a platform like salesforce is to make your process better, simpler, or both. That wasn’t our experience.
The Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) is an add-on that is tailored specifically for Nonprofits. While NPSP offers an incredible amount of functionality, it takes uncommon knowledge to be able to make the changes suitable to fit your volunteer or subject matter expert (SME) processes. There are almost 30 certifications for Salesforce! We spent an amazing amount of time, energy, and not to mention money before eventually settling on a product that was much simpler. While NPSP is technically free (the first 10 subscriptions to qualifying organizations), it can certainly cost your organization more than you bargained for. If you don’t have someone who is already versed in NSPS or ready to dedicate some time to learning the ropes, NSPS could end up costing you way more than other platforms.
According to Bloomerang,
the average cost to implement Salesforce for a nonprofit ranges from $7,000 – $30,000, and again this all depends on the complexity of your needs so your organization could be looking at an invoice closer to $100,000. There are a number of stories about Salesforce account executives selling nonprofits solutions they actually do not need.
“Over the past few years I experienced similar attempts at several of my clients who utilize Salesforce, but had no idea it was so widespread. It’s common for Salesforce.org (and other vendors) to sell and start charging for all of the licenses a nonprofit will eventually need up front, as opposed to just the small number they need during implementation.”
David Deal, Build Consulting co-founder.
A technology platform is as only as valuable to your organization as the data you put in it. Salesforce is no different. It’s no secret that maintaining a volunteer or SME program through excel spreadsheet can lead to poor data hygiene. Transferring that data into NSPS doesn’t solve that problem, and it offers no real solution to cleaning or improving that data. As your experience goes along, those data problems will only compound. Salesforce offers very little personal training with their very complicated tool. If your organization gets off to a bad start with salesforce, it could have dire implications for your volunteer or SME program.
While they did make some sensible accommodations, Salesforce is ultimately designed for the for-profit sector, so there are some lasting relics that just aren't designed for volunteer or SME programs. If your organization is in the market for a new volunteer or SME management platform, do your homework; maybe even give Lineup a look. We were designed from the ground up to solve your volunteer and SME management woes, and we’d love to hear from you!
Questions to ask when you’re considering Salesforce for your volunteer or SME program:
How will this new solution bring value to your organization?
Are you ready to make lots of informed decisions during implementation?
Do you have the bandwidth of cash flow to bring in a dedicated administrator to build relationships with your implementation partner, app vendors and train internal team members on how to use the platform? ($130K+ per year)
Are you prepared to invest in the system long-term?