We Need to Talk

Our beloved community of nonprofit Salesforce practitioners needs to have some deep and important conversations.

And not just in little one-on-ones or side notes to other discussions.

I'm not sure who all the right voices are to include.

I've failed, so far, to bring interested parties together.

And, let's face it: my voice, in particular, might be more of a distraction than a help.

Besides, I'm not sure how, when, or where to convene these discussions.

But in case it's helpful, I can articulate the What and the Why.

What: the future for nonprofits using Salesforce

What we need to discuss, in case you haven't figured it out from my previous posts, is on the future for nonprofits using Salesforce. At the moment, we've got potential for quite a bit of chaos when nonprofits look at adopting Salesforce (or those already on the platform consider the future of their instance).

Five years ago a nonprofit about to adopt Salesforce was overwhelmingly likely to use the Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP). The few that didn't choose NPSP had specific reasons, like an earned-revenue model where Sales Cloud was right for them, or a plan to use another specific app. Functionally, this meant that when we spoke about "nonprofits on Salesforce" we were talking about NPSP or at last orgs that have NPSP as a base to other customization.

But since the launch of the Industries-based Nonprofit Cloud (now "Agentforce for Nonprofits" or "AFNP") we have already seen a bifurcation of the market for new instances. Of course, the vast majority of the installed nonprofit base is still on NPSP. But Salesforce is selling AFNP hard, for all kinds of reasons (including, but not limited to, profit margin).

And, starting in December, Salesforce has even removed the option of getting your org provisioned with NPSP pre-installed.

[For the record: You can still get NPSP with your new P10 donation. You just have to install it.]

From the very launch of Nonprofit Cloud people realized it was going to have ... How shall I put this? ... gaps. That is to say, there were things that were too complex, or confusing, or poorly documented, or components that didn't work well. I was there for the initial conversations that lead to the NPC Best Practices group of the Open Source Commons. Kudos to them for the work they've done and are still doing toward making AFNP more understandable, easier for admins (and consultants) to set up, and just more usable for more organizations.

At the same time that Salesforce is pushing AFNP and NPC Best Practices is working to speed up its maturity vis-a-vis the marketplace, others are deciding that the Industries- and person accounts-based model is just not a good fit. Besides me, there isn't much public writing about this for many reasons (but mostly money). But consultants have conversations with their clients. People have conversations at user group meetings, on the margins of various events, and one-on-one all the time.

People are even stepping into the breach to offer products on the platform with the kind of functionality NPSP offers, but without the dependency on support from stock ticker CRM. Idlewild has been publicizing their Nonprofit Accelerator (NPA) and thinking about how to make it available more widely than just to their clients. I raised a question at the 2025 Denver Community Sprint that become the Nonprofit Bridge project. And recently Laura Meerkatz forked NPSP's code to create a new community-owned version called NPPatch. There are almost certainly other efforts happening that I haven't heard about yet. (I've also heard more than a few consultants asking the question, "Are there other CRM alternatives that I should recommend for clients of my size/type?")

On the one hand, these three projects are great! This is a revitalization of the community. It shows a level of interest and commitment that I applaud. It sounds like the kind of energy that created NPSP in the first place, before Salesforce.org took it over.

On the other hand, we're duplicating effort and we're neither coordinating nor communicating. We haven't answered questions like:

• Do we (as a community) want/need an alternative to AFNP?

• If so, is NPSP still that alternative?

• Or NPA?

• Or NPPatch?

• Or should Bridge build something of its own?

• Are we OK with having two "camps" (AFNP and NPSP), or three, or four?

• Who should own, publish, and support the product(s) that nonprofits adopt?

Major kudos to Laura for opening discussions on her repo about exactly these questions. But she hasn't gotten much traction there yet. (And maybe the Discussions tab of a GitHub repo isn't the right place. Plus it’s the discussions of a specific repo.) Bridge got a lot of interest in Denver and many people signing up to its LinkedIn Group. But more enthusiasm than discussion. And Idlewild initially started to launch a partner program for NPA in the fall, then put that on indefinite pause for internal discussions.

So these conversations are just not happening yet.

Why: the future for nonprofits using Salesforce

[See what I did there? The What and the Why are the same thing!]

These conversations are important because they impact the very idea of whether nonprofits will continue to use Salesforce in similar enough ways that we can have a "nonprofit Salesforce community." As long as it continues to be "free" for nonprofits, there will be organizations trying out this platform. But if they're all using different configurations, then they'll only have similar challenges (like how to raise money, how to engage constituents, how to track outcomes) but not similar solutions to share.

Start the Conversation!

Sticking with my normal every-two-weeks schedule, this post is going to go live the morning before Nonprofit Dreamin 2026. That's coincidental but very fortuitous timing. Lots of nonprofit Salesforce practitioners will be in the same place. Some of the leaders of the projects I've listed will be there as well. I'll be there. I'm sure a lot of you, my readers, will be there.

Let's talk.

And when the conference is over, let's continue talking on the Trailblazer Community, on Ohana Slack, at TDX and Dreamforce, and Dreamins, and sprints, and everywhere else.