What are common reasons that nonprofits struggle with using Salesforce?

We’ve seen many common reasons why organizations struggle with Salesforce. All of these can be navigated, but they’re important to consider:

• Salesforce can be overwhelming to navigate without some customization to reduce and simplify the user experience.

• Staff turnover occurs, and without documentation even the most talented new hires have difficulty picking up where the last person left off.

• Inconsistent processes and unclear expectations lead to inconsistent data entry. Without reliable data, reporting from Salesforce is not useful and staff create redundant spreadsheets for their tracking needs.

• Large Salesforce Implementers (SI’s) are too expensive to hire on a regular basis, and experience significant turnover themselves.

• Salesforce’s Account Executives are always up-selling, whether or not you need additional software.

• Salesforce’s free support may not be readily available and does not understand the nuances of how nonprofits operate.

• So many Salesforce resources exist that it’s hard to know where to begin.

We have a small number of projects, definitely less than 60 hours of work. Can you provide us with a custom scope of work?

We’re happy to have a conversation and show you how this work can fit into one of our ongoing support packages. Keep in mind that creating a custom scope of work takes, at minimum, 5 hours of our best thinking even for a small project. When we create a scope, we consider all of the component tasks in detail given your organization’s unique history and context. This work of “defining the project strategy” and identifying the trade-offs between different approaches is the most important and valuable work of the whole engagement. Let’s imagine that our custom scope is for 20 hours of work - this means we’ve given you at least 25% of the value of the project for free before the work has even begun; and that’s if you decide to move forward.

Unfortunately, “working for free” happens at all levels of the social sector. You have to “work for free” every time you put together a grant application, or respond to a surprise reporting requirement. But this norm of “working for free” perpetuates inequity and ultimately prevents us all from paying fair wages and retaining talented, diverse professionals.

To make our ongoing projects accessible, we’ve applied a 20% discount to our normal rates for ongoing support packages. We also offer free monthly office hours for any organization looking to get advice on a one-off question.

We're a small organization on a tight budget. Can we afford to work with you?

We specialize working with small nonprofits and for-impact businesses. We get asked all the time by small organizations - can we afford to invest in upping our data systems game right now?

This reminds us of a favorite proverb: The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

Imagine if you had the right Salesforce configuration, habits, and documentation 5 years ago. What would your organization look like if you’ve been successfully building on this for the last 5 years? How many headaches would your team have avoided, and how much more efficient would your team be? In the absence of going back in time, the best thing you can do is make a smart investment in your data infrastructure now, to future-proof your organization.

If you’re still nervous, we’ve created a no-brainer guarantee. If you show up in our partnership and you’re still not satisfied with our work, I will give you a full refund within 90 days. It’s a no-lose investment.

Why aren’t you a certified Salesforce Partner?

To become a Salesforce partner and maintain that status, firms need to hit specific financial quotas for how much Salesforce consulting they do. In addition, they must meet a growth quota each year. We love the platform, but acknowledge that it’s not always the right choice for every organization. If we were to become a Salesforce partner, we would be incentivized to recommend Salesforce even if it isn’t the right solution. In short, it compromises our objectivity.

Salesforce is a great company, and they already have enough power. We want the flexibility to be on your side, not theirs, when deciding what the right solutions are for your organization.

Why should I work with a small team instead of a larger firm?

Both have pros and cons, and there are many talented mid-sized and large Salesforce consulting firms. The advantages to working with a small team like Coeffect include:

Continuity - We’ve grown slowly, and are careful with bringing on collaborators. All of our long-term clients are working with at least one of the same team members they began with. With larger firms, staff turnover frequently and it’s unlikely that you will be able to work with the same consultant for more than a year or two.

Flexibility - We put just enough structure around our projects to align on expectations, and work flexibly in that framework. Larger firms tend to have a more rigid approach and may have a harder time adapting to your nonprofits’ changing priorities and needs.

Price - We can offer better rates than the large consulting firms, because we have fewer levels of staffing and less overhead.

Customer Experience - We have a relatively small number of clients, so can offer a more personal touch than a large firm. Consider the difference between going to a family-owned medical clinic and visiting a mega-hospital like Kaiser Permanente - for most families both kinds of practices offer the same services, but they feel completely different.

Is there any Salesforce work that you don’t do?

We believe it’s important to be crystal clear on what work we’re not best suited for. For one, we stick to configuration as opposed to coding in Salesforce. This means that we don’t create custom code for API integrations, unique user experiences using Visualforce, or complex automations and recurring processes using APEX. However, we’ve found that the vast majority of nonprofits and for-impact businesses don’t need custom code to accomplish their Salesforce objectives.

In addition, we currently don’t support Salesforce’s mass email tools (Pardot and Marketing Cloud). These tools are often too robust for the smaller organizations we work with, who typically use entry-level email tools like Mailchimp. We do have considerable experience connecting Salesforce with third-party email tools, and can help you consider when integrating to another system is valuable.

Finally, we especially enjoy working with organizations that are (or hope to be) using Salesorce for more than just fundraising. This is by no means diminishing the importance of fundraising. Because we have a broad background in nonprofit evaluation and operations we find that we can add especially high value for organizations using Salesforce for program management. Of course we’re very familiar with Salesforce’s fundraising features (the Nonprofit Success Pack), but if you’re only planning to use Salesforce within fundraising you may be better served by working with a consultant who is a former fundraiser.

How can I convince my Board that we need to do this?

We get it - it's scary to invest in infrastructure, especially when there is so much pressure to keep money flowing directly to your program. At the same time, many board members are intimately familiar with business and understand that “you need to work on the business, not just in it.”

When creating your value hypothesis for investing in your data system, consider some of the positive outcomes of this investment:

Better User Experiences, which

• Allows your staff to access critical information more quickly
• Strengthens your staff’s trust and buy-in to your data
• Supports data quality

Better Data Quality, which

• Enables more accurate reports
• Enables external-facing data products like your annual impact report
• Enables more meaningful, authentic interactions with all of your constituents

Better Data Use

• Powers strong reports and dashboards and helps your team learn faster
• Enables better, data-informed decision making

If there’s a particular Board member that could use some education on the importance of investing in data systems, we’re happy to talk with him or her. Please reach out to us at paul@coeffect.co.