Environmental Defense Fund

Salesforce NPSP implementation

Environmental Defense Fund is one of the world’s leading environmental organizations. The organization has over 1,000 staff members and takes on environmental challenges in 28 countries.

The Heller team has been a strategic partner for us through multiple technology projects. They were able to lead EDF through a large-scale migration effort to Salesforce NPSP on a tight timeline and supported our staff with industry best practices and change management.

Marc Cima

Chief Information Officer, Environmental Defense Fund

Challenge: Quick, large-scale move to a new CRM system

Like many nonprofits, in April 2021, the Environmental Defense Fund learned that Blackbaud would be sunsetting the Luminate CRM product.

The EDF team had already been considering a long-term strategy of moving from Luminate CRM to Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP)—which would include a needs assessment, product roadmap, and product implementation over a multi-year period. Now the large organization faced the task of moving to a new customer relationship management (CRM) system in just 14 months.

Solution: Expedited, yet complete, CRM implementation

Already working with Heller Consulting on another technology project, EDF turned to the Heller team for an expedited CRM implementation. Because they are already well-versed in multiple nonprofit technologies, including Blackbaud and Salesforce products, the Heller team was able to streamline the CRM implementation.

Despite the tight timeline and large-scale project, the Heller team worked with EDF through a complete migration from Luminate CRM to Salesforce NPSP, including:

16+ discovery sessions with eight departments and process areas
Detailed user story requirements for each department and process area
Data mapping of more than 60 tables from Luminate CRM to NPSP
Confirmation of system design and security needs
Migration of millions of constituent and related records
Support in updating integrations with multiple external systems
Testing and targeted re-testing of the solution before launch
Support with change management and risk assessment/management

Heller Consulting helped us with an unexpected move from Luminate CRM to Salesforce NPSP in just 14 months. On a normal timeframe, we would have planned for at least two years to perform a migration of this size and complexity, and we couldn’t have met this aggressive deadline without their partnership. The Heller team became extensions of our staff, and their expert guidance and resourcefulness set us up for success on a great new platform ahead of schedule.

Patrick Cranston

AVP of IT Systems and Data, Environmental Defense Fund

The Result: A well-executed implementation with time to spare

Working together, EDF and the Heller team completed the CRM implementation with six weeks to spare. Working with the Heller team, EDF continues to further define and implement its technology roadmap.

Ready to get started?

If you’re a nonprofit organization or education institution and you need help with your technology project, get in touch!