The Salesforce Nonprofit team have been working very hard on the release of their new “Nonprofit Cloud”. This is a completely new release that is independent of the current Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) and will be rolled out to new Salesforce customers in the nonprofit space.
“The Nonprofit Cloud for Programs” module has seen its first general release this month for new customers, so let’s review some of the new features that will make your life easier as a Programmes Manager.
Person Accounts
As many who have worked with Salesforce in the non-profit sector will know, within the older NPSP package every stakeholder in Salesforce needed to belong to either a household or an organisation because of Salesforce’s underlying architecture. While the NPSP team built great automation to mitigate this from a data entry perspective, this still limited organisations that worked directly with individuals one-to-one.
This will no longer be an issue as the new Nonprofit Cloud will operate based on Person Accounts. This is an amalgamation of contacts and accounts that will allow you to work with individuals in Salesforce. But not to worry for those who still work with organisations, the new architecture will allow you to associate individuals with as many organisations as you need to, as well as allow you to set up working groups.
ARC – The Actionable Relationship Centre
Now, this one really is a game-changer! The Actionable Relationship Center allows you to see the full spectrum of activity your client has undertaken at your organisation. In one view you’ll be able to see all programmes participated in, all benefits received and any relationships that your client has with other clients and organisations.
Benefit Types
To aid with reporting, benefits can now be classified by type, and will allow you to report appropriately for that type.
For example, you will be able to report on help received in hours for classes, or for the number of nights stay for sheltered accommodation. This will be in the same place so that you can report on benefits across programmes.
Programme Setup and Attendance Tracking
While setting up programmes in the older NPSP package is still possible, the newer Nonprofit Cloud for Programs module makes this process more streamlined and easier to manage.
A guided flow will allow you to mass-create sessions as part of a schedule. From there you can enrol multiple clients at once, and this will create their related benefit schedule records so you can see the specific benefits they will receive as part of that session.
It will also allow you to add clients to individual sessions rather than the whole programme, without having to go through the admin of creating programme enrollments. Finally, you can mark multiple clients as attended or no show at once, auto-creating benefit disbursements for those who attended.
Anonymous Stakeholders
Nonprofit Cloud will allow you to enter benefit disbursements for anonymous stakeholders, so you will easily be able to see proper KPIs without needing full contact details for your clients.
Summary
So to summarise, the new Nonprofit Cloud has a lot to offer in its programmes module. More flexibility across account structure, benefit classification, and programme set-up plus powerful overview capabilities that preserve stakeholder anonymity.
And if the programmes module is anything to go by, we’re excited to see what else is in store from Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud.