Once upon a time it was relatively easy for a small nonprofit to self-implement Salesforce.
It's how I got started, and many other nonprofit Salesforce professionals as well. We were working at a small organization, we needed CRM, and "this Salesforce thing" seemed like it could work for us. We spun up a trial org, applied to the Power of Us program, spent some time playing in Setup, possibly spent a couple thousand dollars on a "quick start" with a consulting partner, and we were off and running. The quick start consulting engagement was optional, but, at least in our case, it gave us a boost and some confidence that I was getting things right.
Once Trailhead launched in 2014 it became even easier to self implement because that is one amazing free (and fun!) learning resource.
Naturally, success on the platform varies. And the quality or scope of an in-house DIY implementation is going to be a lot different than you would get from a big partner project. But for basic fundraising tracking needs and an upgrade from spreadsheets, the Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) is pretty great for the needs of thousands of organizations. And as your in-house person grows their skills, it's easy to grow your Salesforce to support more and more of the business needs.
⚠️ Self Implementation: Would Not Recommend ⚠️
But in 2024 I don't think I would recommend that a nonprofit self-implement Salesforce. It's become much more challenging than it used to be.
I won't say it's impossible because I believe that a motivated person nonprofit staffer with some level of technical comfort (not yet "expertise," but a willingness to try things, learn, and dive in) could do this on her own. With time to devote to the project, engagement with Trailhead and the help documentation, and a willingness to engage with the community and ask questions, a newcomer could implement a credible NPSP setup for their organization. Of course, the organization would have to allow that staff member to devote time and energy to the implementation. It's the amount of time required that has gone up significantly.
Full Disclosure (if you didn't already know): I make my living implementing and supporting Salesforce for small nonprofits. Clearly that means I have a bias toward someone hiring a consultant for an implementation rather than doing it themself. So take my comments/opinions here with that in mind. But I'll give the reasons for my thoughts and let you decide.
That Was Then
What I remember of our Quick Start in late 2012/early 2013: We got 40 hours of consultant time for a prepackaged implementation with minimal customization. The "quick" part meant that customization was limited, but we also got something of a discount, or at least a fixed price. I remember it costing $5,000 or $6,000. (40 hours at $150/hr sounds about right.) That was 12 years ago and inflation is real. But I don't think too many consultancies are offering a basic implementation even for the inflation-adjusted equivalent of about $8,000.
The Salesforce platform has envolved, of course, with more powerful automation through Flow and new products and services that organizations may need advice about. An organization probably has more acute questions when starting their Salesforce journey, as I'll talk about below. And it's just a different landscape with nonprofits served by the Industries vertical within Salesforce rather than a nominally-independent Salesforce.org. All that is to say that I am clear-eyed about how organizations will relate differently to their implementation partner than they might have back then. A small org that just "wants to start using Salesforce" may actually need more time from their consulting partner than would have been needed in 2012. or have a lot more to figure out on their own then they would have back then.
This is Now
If you're thinking about implementing Salesforce at a small nonprofit today:
You have to choose between Nonprofit Success Pack and Nonprofit Cloud. As I've written, NPC isn't appropriate for small nonprofits. But should a small nonprofit choose NPC, I really don't think self-implementing it is viable. The data model is too complicated, the initial setup steps are too numeous and finicky, and the documentation is not complete. Members of the nonprofit Salesforce community are working on this, as is Salesforce itself, one assumes, but I have doubts that it will ever be possible to self-implement NPC.
You also, at this very early stage in considering your implementation, will start getting calls from Account Executives, or AEs. (Spoiler Alert: AEs are Salespeople.) Because of the way sales incentives are structured at Salesforce, you're going to get a lot of pressure to buy things like Unlimited Edition, Experience Cloud, Premier Support, and more.
You don't get to convert a trial org into your real instance. You can get a trial and play with it, but when you get your real instance it will be essentially a clean org, perhaps with NPSP installed, but only the package, none of the extras that were part of the trial, including record types, sales processes, page layouts, metadata records for NPSP features (like reciprocal relationships settings), and more.
The Salesforce platform and ecosystem has also grown in the last decade. So it's just the case that there are more decisions to be made, more features to consider, and more rabbit holes in the Setup Tree to explore than there were in 2012.
I Just Went Through This
Hours
Though I do a lot more ongoing support and add-on builds, every so often I get to do an implementation from scratch for a new Salesforce org. I just got to the end of one of those projects, in fact. So let me give a transparent view into that recent implementation. (Other than not telling you who the client was, because that feels weird.)
To begin with, I estimated the project at around 60 hours. With the benefit of hindsight, that might have been a little low, and I'll probably estimate a little extra padding next time because I strongly prefer to overestimate and come in under. (Then again, these are estimates, so...🤷🏻.) As of the time of this writing, I'm six or seven hours over where I estimated. Plus I want to provide at least a bit of cushion for post-implementation support. As a businessman I have to decide what to do. But bottom line: This implementation went very smoothly, was not very complicated, and was for fundraising only. So sixty hours is just about the bare minimum I can imagine a new implementation requiring. I work quite quickly and have a lot of experience navigating Salesforce's back end.
Consider what it would take for an internal employee doing this as a self-implementation and learning Salesforce as they go. Would that take them twice as long? Three times? More? If this is an employee suddenly adding Salesforce to other job responsibilities it might not entail additional line item costs to the organization, but there is definitely a cost for that person to take on the project.
Costs
Speaking of costs, I do projects like this as a time-and-materials project after giving my best attempt at an estimate. I feel this shares the risk equally between me and the client. Of course, some consultants might do this implementation for a fixed fee. And others might have a lower (or higher) hourly rate.
I was charging $176.80/hour for this implementation.
(Full Transparency: My rate is $221/hour for Salesforce work. I give nonprofits a 20% discount, hence $176.80. In 2025 my base rate will increase to $230.)
So this fairly simple and smooth implementation will be about $11,000.
Other Considerations
Because I've been doing this for a few years, I have some tools that allowed me to speed things up.
Using Copado Essentials makes planning, testing, and executing deployments much faster when I build in sandboxes. (And we always do that, right!?!) Copado ain't free, however.
I also have a bunch of metadata saved that used to allow me to customize on top of the NPSP Trial. I couldn't use it the way I did in the past, but that stored metadata gave me a bit of a speed boost in getting the org looking the way I want it. I was able to push that metadata into the client's production org using Salesforce DX.
I also built and stored a test and training dataset using Cumulus CI.
No Salesforce newbie is going to have access to any of that, even if they have budget to spend.
I think it's also fair to point out that I try to put more thought and effort to design and user experience than some other consultants might. So I suppose some time could be saved there.
Your Mileage May Vary
I'll end where I began: Salesforce is a powerful platform and NPSP is awesome for tons of organizations. But it's just not that easy to implement on-the-cheap anymore.
You might be able to do it entirely in-house by a self-taught staff member.
A small organization doesn't need a large consultancy.
A small organization may not even need a small consultancy or even an independent consultant like me.
The Salesforce community is vast and full of smart, talented, experience people, you might be able to get one of them to help you for free. (Though please be careful going this route. I have made far too much of my living cleaning up the mess someone left behind implementing for a nonprofit without understanding the business needs of nonprofits or the architecture of NPSP.)
But my experience in the last few years has lead me to believe that someone is going to have to spend at least 60+ hours working directly on a new implementation, from discussions with stakeholders, scoping, and training to architecting and hands-on-keyboard setup and configuration.