MK Partners Articles

Which Edition of salesforce.com is Right for Me?

Your organization has taken the important step of signing up for salesforce.com, but to make sure you get the most out of your license, it’s important to determine which edition of salesforce.com is right for you.

Salesforce.com offers two basic choices for Nonprofit organizations, – standard Salesforce CRM (commonly used for the commercial sector), and the Salesforce CRM + Nonprofit Starter Pack. Both enterprise-level editions offer free 30-day trials and include Salesforce.com’s award-winning customer relationship management tools as a base from which to configure salesforce.com to fit your organization’s intrinsic needs.

The first choice, the “generic” salesforce.com template is seen as salesforce.com “out of the box”. This edition is generally oriented toward the business world but can be extended to fit any required non profit business process. In some cases the standard Salesforce CRM might be the right fit for your organization. The standard commercial Salesforce CRM doesn’t provide the same default functionality that a nonprofit may need (for example the ability to manage households), but it is still full-featured and can be a great starting point for your organization.

However, it’s been the experience of MK Partners that the addition of the Nonprofit Starter Pack takes away much of the initial trepidation of signing up for salesforce.com because it was built with the common core needs of the nonprofit sector in mind. By choosing this edition, nonprofit organizations can realize significant savings in customizing the application to meet their needs than they would if starting from a standard commercial version of Salesforce. This edition provides tools to help manage your organizations campaigns, leads, donations and contacts. Here, some of the names have been changed (An Opportunity is called a Donation, and a an Account is called an Organization, for example). This edition easily allows you to:

• Manage donors and fundraising programs
• Track affiliations
• Manage a wide range of constituents in one place including donors, volunteers, board members, and more

The Salesforce CRM + Nonprofit Starter Pack

Imagine the complete power of Salesforce CRM (Customer Relationship Management) used everyday by thousands of for-profits, but with added functionality specifically for nonprofits to better track donors, donations, and fundraising programs. The Salesforce CRM + Nonprofit Starter Pack uses all of the power of standard Salesforce CRM and adds a base set of functionality unique to the nonprofit sector.

All the Benefits of Salesforce CRM

Because the Nonprofit Starter Pack is built on the salesforce.com platform (Force.com), nonprofits can also take advantage of all the powerful Salesforce CRM features.

• Software as a service means no hardware or software to install or maintain
• Award-winning ease of use that drives end-user adoption and compliance
• Apply work-flow triggers to automatically generate tasks for volunteers or board members
• Create standardized templates for consistent, professional responses to queries that can still be personalized by the sender
• Control access to sensitive data by creating user hierarchies to protect confidential information
• Get instant insight and analysis with powerful dashboards and reports to quickly analyze and
  understand your constituent behaviors
• Point-and-click customization to meet your organization’s specific needs
• The flexible Force.com platform to meet even the most extensive customization and integration

The Nonprofit Edition was recently re-developed by the Salesforce Foundation and MK Partners to further meet the specific needs of non profits, and the roughly 400 organizations who sign up forsalesforce.com every week. While not all nonprofits operate in the same way, the template tries to address common core functionality that is traditionally found in the nonprofit rather than commercial sector.

Since its first release in 2006, the nonprofit edition has received important and exciting improvements. At the core, the application remains simple, by providing a rudimentary set of contact management and fundraising type functionality. However, it’s still defined in such a way that it can have multiple other nonprofit solutions added on to it via the AppExchange, including many solutions offered by MK Partners.

Features and Enhancements of the Nonprofit Edition

In addition to providing essential, built-in salesforce.com functionality, major features of the nonprofit edition include:

• Sophisticated APEX code for automation, enabling customers to decide how they want to relate contacts and accounts.
• New functionality such as Organization Affiliations and Contact Relationships.
• Donation automation – built native to salesforce.com!
• Single donation tracking capabilities
• A converter to migrate existing users of the original nonprofit template over to the new one

Major enhancements:

• Contact-to-Contact relationship tracking
• Affiliation tracking
• Fully automated capabilities for tracking individual people (constituents), the B-to-C model
• Reduces the amount of clicks it takes to enter a new individual and maintain that data.

Benefits:

• Bring higher levels of professionalism and shared communication to your organization.
• Improve interactions with donors, volunteers, and supporters and encourage repeat donations.
• Analyze your organizations initiatives from fundraising campaigns to program impact.

You can’t go wrong

With either template that you choose as starting point, there may be be a number of things to undo and change. For everything you like, there may be some things you don’t. One of the many benefits of salesforce.com is that it is configurable and extend-able to specifically fit any business process for any given organization; this is one of the hallmarks of salesforce.com technology. Whichever edition you choose, you have the powerful force.com AppExchange at your fingertips and customizable database with complete functionality.

Have further questions? The experts at MK Partners offer complimentary salesforce.com support for non profit organizations. Visit us online at mkpartners.com, or email us at support@mkpartners.com

Sign up for a free trial for either edition here:

Read the Product Donation FAQ

Watch MK Partners CEO and Nonprofit Starter Pack lead, Matt Kaufman’s webinar here for an exciting demonstration

 

Choose a Trial	Salesforce CRM	Salesforce CRM plus Nonprofit Starter Pack
1. Why should I choose this one?	Salesforce.com’s award winning commercial CRM (customer relationship management).	Manage donors and fundraising programs Track affiliations Manage a wide range of constituents in one place including donors, volunteers, board members, and more.
2. Get more details	Salesforce Standard Edition Data Sheet	Salesforce CRM plus Nonprofit Starter Pack Data Sheet
3. Make a choice	Sign me up for a trial of Salesforce CRM	Sign me up for a trial of Salesforce CRM plus Nonprofit Starter Pack

reference: salesforce.com Foundation

‘Tis the season of giving, but in these tough economic times, MK Partners understands the fundraising challenges your organization may be facing. Here are 10 important fundraising do’s and dont’s to keep in mind:

1. Do strengthen your case for giving. Your donors are more interested in how the economic troubles are directly impacting your beneficiaries, rather than your organization. Chances are, their needs are greater than ever, so your campaigns should emphasize this urgent need

2. Don’t apologize for asking. Even if times are tough, a request for donations to your cause is an opportunity for your donors to validate their values and beliefs. Instead, make sure you have a strong case for support, and that donors know where their money is going.

3. Do segment your donor file using the most sophisticated tools within your reach. Take advantage of salesforce.com’s tools to mail your donors more selectively, and focus more on those donors at the top of your giving pyramid.

4. Don’t cancel donor acquisition activities. Instead, budget-friendly ideas include list exchanges or networking events.

5. Do invest in personalized appeals – embed multiple data points from your database in each individual letter, refer to the number of years a donor has been contributing to your organization, whether they have been a volunteer, an event-attendee, a monthly donor, etc…

6. Don’t cut the cord. It’s crucial to stay in touch, especially with your most generous and responsive donors. Step up your online fundraising and communication efforts. Increase the frequency of your communication, and if you’re not using the telephone to stay in touch, now is the time to begin. The interactivity of telephone contact is important to maintaining personal contact. If possible, meet your donors in person. Face-time is more valuable than any number of emails you could send.

7. Do optimize online giving opportunities on your web site by making the process as easy as possible for donors, including a prominent “Donate” button on every page, and building a specific landing page for each electronic appeal to reinforce the case for giving. Make sure you are utilizing the capability of your online fundraising tools to track donor interests and behaviors, and be sure to use that information to personalize email offers.

8. Do emphasize your annual donor - those who give you a set amount each year are the people potentially wondering if they should give you the full $250 rather than just $150 this year. Large annual donations have the most flexibility and involve important, loyal donors who have been with you for several years. Focus on keeping such donors informed and motivated to maintain their support.

9. Do understand that corporate donations are the first to decline in a recession. Resist the temptation to go after “big gifts” from companies because they will make the largest difference, rather than lots of smaller gifts from individuals. The reality is that corporate giving is less reliable, and the time spent away from individual donors-who provide more than 83% of charitable donations, can be costly.

10. Do publicize your organization. Write a letter to your local newspaper or media outlet highlighting the value of your organization to the community. Now is not the time to cut back on marketing, instead redouble the effort. Make sure your mission statement is compelling and unique.

For an additional resource, here’s a link to an informative, recent NY Times article,

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/giving/11ARTS.html?scp=13&sq=nonprofit&st=cse

references:

http://www.afpnet.org

Spark Selects MK Partners’ Shopping Cart via the Force.com AppExchange from Salesforce.com

MK Partners’ Shopping Cart enables Spark to take control of its relationship building with donors

SAN FRANCISCO – Salesforce.com Dreamforce Conference – November 3, 2008 – MK Partners today announced that Spark has deployed the MK Partners’ Shopping Cart via the Force.com AppExchange. Leveraging Google Checkout, MK Partners has developed code that all salesforce.com customers can use to display and sell products through their websites, including real-time integration with the contact, opportunity, and product records in Salesforce CRM. Built on the Force.com platform, MK Partners’ Shopping Cart will be available in time for the holiday season for test drive and deployment on the Force.com AppExchange at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/. It is currently available for purchase directly through MK Partners.

The announcement was made today at Dreamforce ‘08, Salesforce.com’s User and Developer Conference.

Spark, a San Francisco-based nonprofit committed to inspiring middle-school youth to pursue their interests, came to MK Partners seeking a way to integrate Salesforce CRM with their website, allowing prospective donors to build relationships with students. In conjunction with the PHP development team at Arrowpointe, MK Partners built a robust solution utilizing Google Checkout to enable Spark donors to learn more about the youth participating in the program and pledge money to specific program participants.

Eliminating the need for another system, the MK Partners’ Shopping Cart has allowed Spark to process donations online and use that data to help donors cultivate relationships with students in the form of emails and photo updates. “We developed this solution on the Force.com platform as a direct result of the needs of our customer base. MK Partners is proud to offer an application that enables organizations to use Salesforce CRM as a means to both control website content, make sales and collect payments as well,” said Matt Kaufman, CEO of MK Partners.

“With MK Partners Shopping Cart application, companies can control online inventory, payments or sales within one system. Thousands of customers using the Force.com AppExchange now have access to this application to help ensure that sales processes can be completed in Salesforce CRM,” said Clarence So, Chief Marketing Officer, salesforce.com.

The MK Partners’ Shopping Cart was built from the experience gathered by the firms’ established history of implementing Salesforce CRM and developing on the Force.com platform. MK Partners is excited to introduce the Shopping Cart during the highly anticipated Dreamforce 2008 Conference and will be offering this product at a discounted rate for conference participants. Visit www.mkpartners.com for more information on the Shopping Cart and their entire suite of products and services.

About the Force.com Platform and AppExchange:

Force.com is the only proven Platform as a Service for building and running business applications in the cloud. The Force.com platform powers the Salesforce CRM applications, more than 800 ISV partner applications like those from CODA and Fujitsu, and more than 85,000 custom applications used by salesforce.com’s 47,700 customers such as Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE and Sprint Nextel.

Force.com is the fastest platform for building and deploying complex business applications. Unlike a stack of disparate client/server hardware and software products, Force.com unifies the development and deployment model from the database to the device, allowing developers to easily assemble applications with clicks, components and code, and then instantly deploy them on salesforce.com’s trusted global infrastructure. Customers and partners are using Force.com to build all kinds of business applications from supply chain management to compliance tracking, brand management, accounts receivable, claims processing applications and much more. Applications built on the Force.com platform can be easily distributed to the entire SaaS community through the Force.com AppExchange marketplace at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/.

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About MK Partners

MK Partners is a leading management and technology consulting firm specializing in both the development and implementation of salesforce.com products and services. Their expert consultants have worked with a variety of industries and hundreds of companies throughout the country, implementing and developing tools to ensure businesses operate more efficiently and increase return-on-investment. Please visit their website at www.mkpartners.com.

About Arrowpointe

Solution provider Arrowpointe builds tools and utilities that integrate with salesforce.com. Arrowpointe also provides clients a number of salesforce.com related services including implementation and best practices, demonstrating the capabilities of Salesforce’s cutting-edge CRM technology. For more information, visit them online at http://www.arrowpointe.com.

Media Contact:
Lindsey Caplan
MK Partners, Inc.
650-464-2217
lcaplan@mkpartners.com