NPSP 3.0 and NGO Connect

Over the past few months, Salesforce has been announcing a variety of upgrades and new products. Two of the coolest new products to be announcement recently include the new version of the Nonprofit Starter Pack (3.0) and the NGO Connect. Some of you may be asking, “What are these?” or

“How are these different?” Let’s take a closer look into each:

Nonprofit Starter Pack 3.0

The name Nonprofit Starter Pack probably sounds familiar to you and it has good reason. This is because the Nonprofit Starter Pack is the primary app nonprofits install to

use Salesforce. The Nonprofit Starter Pack 3.0 is a new and improved version of the existing Nonprofit Starter Pack many nonprofits have gotten to know. So, what is new and improved?

• Household Account Model: A new option available for contact to account models. This model is based on the concept of households. In previous versions there was a household object that allowed users to roll up donations and create mailing lists so it was only sent to once to an address. What the Household Account does is take this concept and move it over to the account object in hopes of simplifying the data model.
• Primary Affiliations & Contacts: Set a primary contact or organization above and beyond the normal abilities of Affiliations.
• Multiple addresses: With the new Household Account you can add addresses on a contact or account page so that you can track changes that occur. You can even set a seasonal address for mailings which is outstanding for major gifts and direct mail!
• NPSP Settings Tab: Moves all of the cool settings you can configure for the NPSP into an easy to navigate tab.
• Health Check: Check that all NPSP settings are valid, and checks your data for incompleteness or inconsistencies. This is a super cool feature because at the click of a button you can see what issues may be happening with your Salesforce org.

What HASN’T changed:

• 1:1 model is still available (*Note: Household Account model will be recommended by the Foundation as best practice going forward)
• Relationships and affiliations
• Donation rollups on contact and account pages
• 10 free user licenses with Salesforce Foundation Grant Recurring and matching gifts

To learn more about the improvements, check them out here.

NGO Connect This is a brand new product from Salesforce designed for enterprise level nonprofits. NGO Connect was designed thanks to a partnership with roundCorner. RoundCorner has a paid app called roundCause which is used to track fundraising, events and volunteers. About a year ago Salesforce made an investment in roundCorner to expand their product offerings for nonprofits. NGO Connect shows the fruits of this investment. As referenced in the recent release notes, here is a look into the capabilities of NGO Connect:

• Donor Management: Get a complete picture of funders, and supporters in one place—including interaction history, giving history and forecast, program and event attendance and social media interactions. This single view of the constituent enables multi-channel marketing and end-to-end fundraising of all types in a single app.
• Events Management: Streamline event planning and execution for any size event. They can easily post new events, manage event calendars, track RSVPs, create table seating charts and provide VIP summary reports for their staff engaging with attendees. With integrated check-in apps for mobile devices, nonprofits can now have the latest information and real-time reports on their events anywhere, from any web-enabled device.
• Volunteer Management: Efficiently recruit, track and manage all their volunteers and volunteer programs with NGO Connect. They can easily schedule and monitor volunteer events and shifts and they have an on-ramp to build volunteer communities to foster unprecedented engagement and collaboration.
• Nonprofit Relationship Management: Manage all of their constituents’ contact information, preferences, relationships, social identities, interests and preferences in one place. Now they can tap into their supporters’ full potential with visibility into relationships and contact networks. You may be going “Wait, I thought the NPSP was designed to do this?!” You do have reason to wonder as the NPSP can do some of the listed features. What NGO Connect does that NPSP 3.0 cannot is take each of these needs of a nonprofit to the next level.

For instance, the NPSP can have provide event management using Salesforce Campaigns. NGO Connect takes it to the next level by allowing you to build and post new events right within their own Events tool (not requiring you to heavily modify a sales object that was not initially designed for nonprofit use).

Sure there are third party apps like Click & Pledge Events or Soapbox Engage for event management and Volunteers for Salesforce for volunteer management a nonprofit can use in conjunction with the NPSP. NGO creates a one stop shop for core functions of a nonprofit (Fundraising, Events and Volunteers) so you only need to make one decision on an app vs an app decision for each function.

Pricing

Both new products are licensed based. The NPSP 3.0 is free, so therefore all you need is the Salesforce Foundation production donation for the first ten licenses. Any additional licenses are offered at a discounted rate of $30/month. All qualified (see Salesforce Foundation Eligibility) nonprofit Salesforce customers can receive two free licenses to NGO Connect. Additional licenses are $90/month for each license thereafter.

To see all of the exciting features of the NPSP and NGO connect, click here.