MK Partners welcomes its newest client, The Natural Step, to the list of nonprofit organizations achieving salesforce.com solutions developed by MK Partners.

The Natural Step, an organization focused on developing blueprints toward sustainability for organizations of all sectors, lacked the technology to easily implement it’s mission statement. Struggling with outdated systems,  The Natural Step came to MK Partners to develop an integrated, web-based solution that could benefit their project management team in the field and the rest of their staff regardless of location.

Utilizing salesforce.com, MK Partners implemented a solution that enables The Natural Step to track donors, constituents, and all of the aspects associated with project management such as budgets, project teams, quotes, testimonials, and lessons learned in one web-based system.

In tough economic times, the importance of making a sound organizational investment cannot be understated. More so than ever, companies, nonprofit organizations, and government are hesitant to invest their money, time, and staff in solutions that rely on archaic business models. Investments in technology are frequently met with resistance, but is this resistance justified?

An article published this year explains why Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions like salesforce.com defy traditional software business models. As important as it is to know your organization can increase its return on investment using a SaaS product like salesforce.com, it is equally significant to understand factors that will keep SaaS companies viable  in both good times and bad. According to the author, SaaS is recession resistant due to a business model that not only is more psychologically preferrable to a customer, but a business model that can supply solutions to customers with both large and limited cash reserves. While we encourage you to read this article for an analysis of why SaaS is recession resistant, we also remind you to be diligent in your research before making an investment in technology.

Has your organization changed the way it thinks about technology solutions as the economy fluctuates?

Regardless of your line of business, empowering your customers and constituents is a goal that all organizations share. Our constituents drive our organizations to grow, evolve, and deliver better services and products.

In our busy world, it can be difficult to reach out to constituents. Between personal lives, work schedules, travel schedules, and time differences, it can be a daunting task to really communicate with our constituency groups. With salesforce.com, organizations no longer have to worry about figuring out how to have an effective dialogue with constituents.

Utilizing salesforce.com’s Ideas functionality, organizations big and small can leverage technology to drive change both internally and externally.

One of the best examples of how salesforce.com can be leveraged to drive change is to review how President Obama used Ideas functionality during his transition period to offer Americans a forum to share their thoughts, concerns, and ideas with the incoming administration.

Check out Paul Greenberg’s article on how the Obama transition team utilized salesforce.com to generate communication between Americans and our nation’s leadership. Greenberg discusses that this type of technology can be useful to all organizations regardless of sector.

Have you had any success using salesforce.com Ideas? Has your organization struggled with finding an effective way to involve constituents in your growth?