How to Scope Your Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud Pilot

At Dreamforce last month, Salesforce revealed a suite of new products that nonprofits and higher ed organizations have been asking about for years.

But ever cautious and reticent to be the first movers into a product that is still evolving, nonprofits have been slow to migrate. Our clients and friends are telling us they have increased interest in the bells and whistles of Nonprofit Cloud while expressing anxiety about going all-in on a platform that is so new.

The answer is to develop a pilot project to test some of the new functionality and figure out how it can serve your organization’s goals.

Leverage Salesforce’s Powerful New AI Solutions

At Dreamforce, Salesforce introduced Agentforce, which is a suite of AI agents designed to augment human work across various business functions. Salesforce showed a use case of this functionality for the service industry. It seemed like a powerful, yet classic, use case for AI, in which a person might call in and speak with an AI-powered agent to find an order and process a return.

Based on our discussions with nonprofit pros onsite at Dreamforce, it was clear that AI’s promise was different for every nonprofit. For organizations that have a lot of internal clients with transactional needs, an AI agent might be an ideal tool for providing service more efficiently. On the other hand, if your organization took calls from people in crisis, it seemed that the technology was not ready for a user-facing scenario.

This example illustrates the complexity facing service-oriented teams like ours, and underscores why it’s so important to make CRM decisions based on the unique needs of your organization.

Einstein AI Use Cases for Programs and Development

Salesforce’s AI and ML capabilities, under the moniker Einstein, have been around since 2016 but at Dreamforce this year, the company highlighted two important nonprofit use cases.

Fed data about donors, Einstein can score those most likely to make a large donation and prepare an engagement summary to help a Major Gifts Officer prep for a contact.

On the programs side, it can use behavior patterns to predict the participants most likely to drop out of programs, suggesting a case plan that has successfully re-engaged clients in similar situations.

Nonprofit leaders at Dreamforce also touted new capabilities to combined structured and unstructured data (like video and photo information) and promised more industry-specific AI advancements.

Plan Your Nonprofit Cloud Pilot for 2025

If you’re using NPSP, or a non-Salesforce CRM, you can scope a Nonprofit Cloud pilot project that will give you a good idea of the costs of adopting some of the new features, as well as helping you understand their impact on your workflows.

For example, you might have a complex and growing fundraising program and find that it’s worth moving from NPSP to take advantage of the advanced fundraising functionality in the Nonprofit Cloud. Or you could use the opportunity to try out Nonprofit Cloud if you need to replace a custom solution.

The time to develop a pilot project is now, so you understand how the new suite of tools can help you meet your mission when it comes time for a long-term decision about your CRM.

Keep the Nonprofit Cloud on Your List

Whether you use NPSP or you’re considering a move to Salesforce for the first time, it’s a good idea to be thinking about the Nonprofit Cloud. Salesforce is focusing time and innovation efforts on the offering, and it’s an enterprise-level solution that takes full advantage of Salesforce’s core product suite.

Start planning now for when and how the Nonprofit Cloud will fit into your technology strategy. Make sure you have a comprehensive tech plan in place that addresses your organization’s needs and goals today and for coming years.

Learn More About Salesforce Solutions for Nonprofits

Our team here at Heller Consulting is ready to help you determine what mix of Salesforce and other solutions are the right fit for your organization’s needs. We can also help you develop a business case and roadmap as well as implement and support the solutions. Contact us today to learn more and get started.