Is Salesforce the Right CRM for your Nonprofit?

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When clients come to me for help choosing a CRM tool for their nonprofit, inevitably, they’ll inquire about Salesforce as a possibility. They’ll ask, “Isn’t it free for nonprofits?” or “Isn’t it the best system out there?” Often the Salesforce suggestion comes from a board member who is familiar with it professionally.

While Salesforce is, without question, a popular and powerful tool, it is not the right choice for many nonprofit organizations. Let’s clarify why Salesforce may or may not be a good choice for you.

Salesforce is not actually free for nonprofits

Salesforce does (as of this writing) give approved nonprofits access to a NPSP (Nonprofit Success Pack) account for no charge. So technically it is free.

But this is akin to you requesting a tool to help write an essay on the quantum spacetime continuum and I hand you a blank sheet of paper and a pencil. You need particular set of skills and vast knowledge to actually accomplish your task. Alternatively, you could hire a very expensive scientist to write the essay for you.

The “free” version of Salesforce is a blank slate.

Salesforce is an extremely customizable tool, and can be configured to handle any need or work with any tool. But with this level of customization comes a high-level of complexity.

You’ll need significant resources to make it work.

To transform your free salesforce platform into a usable tool, you’ll need the following:

  • A dedicated team member charged with learning, building, customizing, training, and maintaining your Salesforce account.

  • A budget item of ~$4300+ annually (at the time of this writing) for their “Premiere Success Pack” in order to receive training and customer support and to guide your designated team member through the configuration process.

  • Months of time dedicated to setup, training, and connecting your tools with Salesforce to get it to a usable point.

If you have these types of resources available, Salesforce may be a great option.

For example, I recently chatted with the Chapter Director of a large, national, well-known nonprofit. They were in the process of shifting all of their chapters from a hodgepodge of CRMs to Salesforce across the board. This makes total sense for such a highly-resourced organization. They have an entire team dedicated to customization, implementation and training.

Salesforce is not an out-of-the-box solution.

Even when an organization may be able to swing the annual fee for the support package, they simply don’t have the bandwidth for a complex and lengthy installation. They also may not have such complex, individualized needs that would make the high-level of customization worthwhile.

In this case, there are other “out-of-the-box” donor management systems developed specifically to address the common needs of nonprofits. As a result, these systems are much more affordable, faster to set up, and easy for staff to learn and maintain.

What if you have a volunteer or board member who knows Salesforce?

What if you have a connection to someone who has offered to help you get your new Salesforce account up and running? I would advise you to make sure you fully understand and that they fully understand their level of commitment.

Even if your volunteer insists they have hours and hours to devote to your system setup, you still need an internal team member as the point person. They’ll need the time to work closely with this volunteer to learn the system and to help them understand your organization’s needs. Then, they’ll have to learn the system and train others.

If you have a Salesforce trained staff member, do they have enough time to devote to this project in addition to their other responsibilities? Even if they are a full time Salesforce DBA (Database Administrator), you’ll still likely need to budget for the $4,300 Premiere Support pack for long-term success.

Want to discuss your nonprofit’s CRM needs? Book a 30 to 60 min one-on-one session with us.

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