How Nonprofit Organizations Are Transforming Their Salesforce & Reaching Goals

Winter Series Part I – Peeling Back the Layers

Staying warm in the winter means adding layers of clothes and making adjustments for the weather. This blog peels back the layers, so you can see how technology can make a difference for nonprofits as they work toward their goals.

In the nonprofit world, digital transformation can make a big impact on an organization achieving its goals. But the reality is many nonprofits face challenges with tight budgets and staffers wearing multiple hats, which can make starting the process more challenging. 

However, once nonprofits embrace transformation, it can help them increase productivity and employee engagement — and set them up for success.  

In her introduction to “Salesforce Nonprofit Trends Report, Fifth Edition, Marie Laxague Rosecrans, who is the CMO, Education & Nonprofits at Salesforce® asks:” “Why do digitally mature organizations fare better than other nonprofits? Her answer: “Like many Salesforce customers, digitally mature nonprofits recognize that technology empowers people.”

Rosencrans explains, “Automation reduces manual work, so employees can focus on what matters. This leads to happier, engaged, and more productive employees. Salesforce technology increases nonprofit employee engagement — including communication and collaboration — by 25% on average.”

“In this new economy, efficient and productive nonprofits are more effective at delivering impact,” said Rosecrans. The Salesforce report found that organizations that are digitally mature do better than their peers. The report finds that this is true regardless of the number of employees at the organization, as well as the location of the organization.

“Organizations with high digital maturity are 1.9x more likely (93% vs. 50%) to have experienced improvements in organizational efficiency or mission impact. They are also 3.5x more likely (38% vs. 11%) to have achieved mission goals compared to their peers with low digital maturity,” the report found.

Overcoming Digital Transformation Challenges to Position Your Organization for Growth

Solutions that address pain points and close Salesforce gaps for end-users and Admins can make a huge difference with digital transformation. For example, Robin Hood, which is a poverty fighting organization in New York City, was experiencing inefficiencies with their data aggregation process that was being done manually. 

Users were exporting data into spreadsheets and creating pivot tables, which made working with new data time consuming. Robin Hood needed a solution that would streamline their data aggregation and reporting, so they chose Rollup Helper. 

“Rollup Helper simplifies and streamlines our workflow and processes, allowing us to make better and more accurate decisions based on the data we have. More importantly, it opens up opportunities for us to gain insights from our data by manipulating and analyzing it in ways that were previously impossible,” said Robin Hood’s Associate Manager, Database Administrator, Hao Lyu. 

Spending too Much Time Coding and Tracking Down Data

When the Ohio Department of Development needed access to their data in real time, they turned to Rollup Helper. “We desperately needed a solution to calculate a rollup summary on Objects where we cannot use rollup summary fields,” explained Janet Mashkovskiy, business process analyst, Ohio Office of Information Technology.

The result? Rollup Helper has streamlined their work by eliminating the need to write code to calculate rollup summary fields. 

Spending too Much Time Coding 

Rare Karma needed a way to relate two Custom Objects that are related to an Account, but they couldn't find a way to do it without code. “I realized that I needed a complex lookup field, and when the standard Salesforce custom fields weren't of help, I decided Lookup Helper would be worth a shot,” said Rare Karma Software Developer, Alicia Muth.

Alicia found they could use Lookup Helper to create the relationship, and then Rollup Helper to place a sum of the appropriate values on our Custom Object. “We set it to run, and then allowed Realtime Enablement. Now we can focus on other things while this just does the job in the background!” said Alicia.

Resources: Use Cases, Blogs, and e-Books

Nonprofit Donations by Company

Number of Email Tasks under a Contact

Salesforce Task Notifications and Project Resource Alerts

Relate Records Based on Matching Field Values

Create Lookup Helper Settings to Relate Records When Fields Don’t Match

Names of Child Accounts on Parent Account

Standard Rollup Summary Fields Versus Rollup Helper

Finding and Fixing Duplicate Contacts in Salesforce

Our e-Book series Essential Guides for Business Transformation (revised and updated for 2024) shows how the Salesforce Platform can be extended, so you can take your business to the next level. 

Salesforce Admins and Developers — Choosing the Admin Apps and End-User Apps that work for your use case.

Project Leaders — See how effective project management can give you the competitive advantage, while saving time and money.

Decision Makers — Strengthen decision making and get teams on the same page with strategy, prioritization, planning, hiring, and execution.

This blog is the first in our special Winter Series. The series explores the needs and challenges of Salesforce industries and provides resources on how to leverage our apps for digital transformation. Stay tuned for more!