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One of the biggest benefits for nonprofits using Salesforce is the amazing discount we get on state-of-the-art software. The same software used by Fortune 500 companies, at levels of discount usually reserved for their biggest/best customers, without having to actually negotiate for that discount. I think that’s a pretty good deal. But if you’re a nonprofit leader considering Salesforce for the first time (or considering changes to your implementation), it can sometimes be frustrating trying to figure out the specifics of what you’re budgeting for. If you know you’re going to need logins for 37 employees, you want to know how much you’ll be paying for the 27 logins you’ll need after the 10 donated licenses. [Spoiler alert: $432 * 27 = $11,664/year] (But don’t forget that licenses are not your only cost!) For several years I’ve been loudly advocating for increased price transparency from Salesforce.org. There have been some horrendous cases of nonprofits overcharged because they didn’t know what they actually needed. And even in the case of organizations that knew what they needed and what the right price was, sometimes it’s been hard just to get things properly provisioned. 📣 I've been loudly advocating for increased price transparency from Salesforce.org Credit where credit is due: Salesforce.org (SFDO) has made strides to get better. I haven’t heard recent horror stories of overcharges by Account Executives. SFDO reorganized part of their website and published this pricing guide, for one thing. But in my humble opinion, a PDF pricing guide is not the most convenient format. And there are plenty of products left out of the guide, particularly the newest and shiniest things Salesforce has released in the last few years. So that’s why even after the pricing has gotten more transparent, I’ve continued maintaining the Crowdsourced Salesforce.org Pricing spreadsheet. Even if most of the information is available on Salesforce’s website, this way we can see everything in convenient tabular black and white without fishing around various parts of Salesforce.com and Salesforce.org. Go ahead and bookmark that sheet, you'll probably want to refer to it. And if you have any information to add to it, or questions about what’s there, feel free to tag me in a comment–I really do want to keep it up to date. ✅: Bookmark the Crowdsourced Salesforce.org Pricing Guide 🔖 What I would really like to see someday is a statement from Salesforce along the lines of “any organization qualified for the P10 grant will also be able to purchase any other Salesforce product at a minimum discount of X% off list price.” I know that won’t be able to apply to all products, or that some may take time after release to be added to SFDO’s pricing. But if we knew that was the baseline it would make it so much easier for nonprofit admins to think about all the new toys Salesforce announces. Unfortunately, I don’t seem to have made any progress toward getting a guideline like that. If you have ideas for how I could make that wish come true, please get in touch!

Friends (and, of course, potential clients) often ask me, “Why Salesforce? Why should my nonprofit organization switch to Salesforce?” I’m the first to admit that Salesforce is not the only option. It might not even be right for your organization. But I’m a Salesforce expert and I choose to be a consultant on the Salesforce platform. If you want to use another system, do so with my blessing. (I just won’t be able to help.) And let’s not lose sight of the fact that a young (or tiny) organization might not even be ready to graduate from spreadsheets. As long as you’re able to get your work done, that’s the most important thing. Your nonprofit exists to make the world a better place, fulfilling your mission with your program. I would much rather the mission get moving than your systems be perfect. As I see it, there are four main reasons that I recommend nonprofits and educational organizations use Salesforce. 1: You’ve determined that you need “A System” If you have reached the point that you’re considering hiring a consultant like me, that usually means you’ve figured out that you need a little more organization, a little more data security and integrity. You’ve realized you need “A System.” That’s good! It’s a sign of organizational maturity to even have a moment to step back and think about how to do the work rather than always be consumed with just doing the work. 2: Salesforce's 1-1-1 Model The next question, then, is why I work with Salesforce and why I recommend it to nonprofits that are ready for a system. It’s not just that Salesforce is “free.” (The whole point of this blog is that Salesforce is “free” like a puppy, not “free” like a beer.) What makes Salesforce so interesting for nonprofits is their 1-1-1 model, or what they now refer to as Pledge 1%. From its founding, Salesforce dedicated 1% of the company’s equity, 1% of its product, and 1% of employees’ time to nonprofits. Of course, as Marc Beniof has joked, in 1999 they had no product, no employees, and a company worth nothing, so that was pretty easy to pledge! But more than 20 years on that promise has some real…well…promise. Eventually, the “1% of product” portion of the pledge came to mean that any nonprofit can receive a permanent grant of 10 user licenses, or logins, to a Salesforce instance. The application process is about as simple as waiving your IRS 501c3 determination letter (or international equivalent). Then you’ll get your ten licenses approved. This is known in the ecosystem as “the P10 grant.” And that’s a pretty big benefit. It’s a 100% discount compared to what for-profit organizations pay for the exact same software platform. For licenses beyond the 10th, the discount is approximately 75% off list price, with no need to negotiate. Considering that most nonprofits have fewer than ten employees, most will never send a penny to Salesforce itself. I think that’s a pretty good deal. 3: “Dot Org” and NPSP Salesforce.org (SFDO) is an arm of the company dedicated to working with nonprofits. “Dot Org,” as it’s known, developed the Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP), an app installed into your Salesforce instance that modifies the platform to work more like a nonprofit fundraising database instead of a sales tool. (SFDO also publishes the Education Data Architecture, which is a similar product built for educational institutions.) SFDO also supports the nonprofit community with training materials, continues to develop additional products, and more. So nonprofits aren’t just using the product that’s developed for business, we get products developed for our special use cases. 4: Custom Software to Manage Your Mission But fundamentally, I recommend Salesforce to nonprofits because you’re getting access to a state-of-the-art software platform that’s easy to customize to do exactly what you need. With a little bit of implementation know-how or help from a consulting partner, you get custom software to run your organization. Not too long ago anything custom or personalized would have meant a minimum investment out of the reach of all but the largest nonprofits. And once that money was spent, you’d be stuck with that system unchanged for years, even decades. But now even the smallest organizations have access to Salesforce. And once you’re on the Salesforce platform, you benefit from new features and innovation that Salesforce is constantly developing, with much of that new goodness coming your way for free. Plus you can get help and support from thousands of people in the nonprofit Salesforce community. And that is the not-so-secret Fifth Why! #Donation #System #CustomSoftware #Customize #Nonprofit #WhySalesforce

This wasn’t what I was going to be when I grew up. Not at all. I was going to be a diplomat. I was going to single-handedly negotiate an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Now I design software systems for nonprofit organizations. How did I get here? Like so many others in this ecosystem, I’m an “accidental admin.” (And yes, I understand why a lot of people don’t like to use that term.) Databases followed me for decades. I just kept running away from them until I stumbled on Salesforce. In my early career I always seemed to be the person in the office that took a look at the way we were doing our work and decided that we needed systems to make us more efficient or more organized. At a small magazine publisher outside Boston I implemented an editing and production software package that had literally been sitting on a shelf unused. At the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), I battled Microsoft Access to make our office a shared database for case management in the Office of Congressional Affairs. And at the Department of State, in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, I worked to build a system for tracking hundreds of countries’ offers of aid and assistance for a daily update to senior policymakers. Even during the decade I was a stay-at-home dad I found myself deeply involved in the VoteBuilder database as I volunteered with political campaigns and in charge of the membership database for Beachcomber, our co-op swim club. Every system I worked with just felt like a slog. They were fighting my attempts to make them understandable or easy to use. “Pretty” wasn’t even on the menu. In 2012, I returned to the work world in a newly-created community organizing capacity at Reconstructing Judaism. It was clear from the first day that we needed a database to track the congregations that were our members. Someone had thrown together an Access database before I arrived, but we needed something better. We needed a “CRM,” or constituent relationship management system. I hadn’t heard the term, but it encapsulated what I had been working with in all those previous positions. And since I was the youngest and the most tech savvy, the search for the CRM ended up on my plate. That’s when I learned about “this Salesforce thing” and that, thanks to the 1-1-1 model, it was “free.” That seemed like a good deal! Plus it was super simple for me to spin up a fully functional trial instance to see how things worked. Unlike all the systems I’d tried before, Salesforce somehow made sense. With just a few clicks I was able to customize it to work more like what we needed. And the user interface (both front- and back-end) was intuitive. Hooray! We compared a few other options and then chose Salesforce. Using an implementation partner, we got up and running in just a few weeks. Then I started seeing what more I could learn about how to make Salesforce even more custom for us. The next major step in my journey was discovering the Power of Us Hub, the online community for nonprofit Salesforce users. When I was first starting to administer our instance, I wasn’t confident I was doing things right. I started asking questions on the Hub and immediately found a community of nonprofit Salesforce practitioners that were incredibly generous with their time and their wisdom. They validated when I was on the right path, guided me back if I wasn’t, gave me tips, tricks, and best practices, and were genuinely warm and welcoming. That’s what really drew me in. I also started joining the wider Salesforce community. (This was all before the creation of Trailhead. That’s one more amazing resource if you’re new now.) As my knowledge grew, of course, I started answering questions on the Hub instead of mainly asking them. But I still ask a lot of questions even today. It’s how I learn! I am a firm believer that there is no such thing as a stupid question. I think it’s terrific when someone has the courage to ask for help. And I’ve found that the Salesforce community is incredibly welcoming and happy to answer questions, even ones that have been asked before. Fast forward a couple of years and I decided I was interested in making Salesforce the main focus of my next job. I found a full-time solo admin position at Spark, a mid sized nonprofit that was supportive of my continued growth as a Salesforce professional. My position at Spark allowed me opportunities to participate in Open Source Sprints, present at community events, and even to travel to Dreamforce. All that meant meeting more people within the community. I made friends that I know I’ll keep for life. In 2017 I was honored to be named a Salesforce MVP. That’s been a further chance to meet friends and gain insight into Salesforce, the platform as well as the organization. The most recent step in my journey is that in 2020 I made the leap to self-employment as an independent Salesforce consultant. Now I get to work with many nonprofits to build and support their Salesforce instances. My favorite work is creating custom program management solutions that let organizations run their unique programs exactly how they need. #AccidentalAdmin #CareerJourney #PowerofUs #SalesforceAdmin