Salesforce for Non-Profits: NPSP and Nonprofit Cloud for Fundraising and Constituents

Salesforce dominates nonprofit CRM for specific reasons. Salesforce.org (now Salesforce.com's nonprofit team) offers qualifying nonprofits 10 free Enterprise Edition licenses through the Power of Us program — a significant economic advantage that most other CRM platforms can't match. NPSP (Nonprofit Success Pack) provides the nonprofit data model out-of-the-box. The Salesforce AppExchange has extensive nonprofit-specific applications (Classy, iWave, DonorSearch, wealth screening, event management). The nonprofit implementation partner ecosystem is large and experienced. Salesforce evolved NPSP into the broader Nonprofit Cloud with expanded program management and outcome tracking. For most nonprofits that can handle the implementation complexity, Salesforce is the right CRM choice — and the implementation complexity is where nonprofits need help.

Non-profit Salesforce done right uses NPSP or Nonprofit Cloud's nonprofit data model, configures for fundraising workflows (opportunities for gifts, households for family giving, relationships for donor connections, moves management for major gifts), integrates with the fund accounting system for pledge-to-cash flow, integrates with marketing automation (Marketing Cloud or Pardot) for donor communication, and connects with the AppExchange tools that extend NPSP for specific use cases. With the Power of Us license optimization and the implementation discipline that keeps the build sustainable after consultants leave. Done with this discipline, Salesforce delivers for fundraising and constituent management in 9-15 months. Done as generic Sales Cloud, it produces a system the development team doesn't adopt.