NON-PROFIT and The Other Side of The Coin

Salesforce’s Service Cloud (SC) is designed for NON-PROFIT organizations (NPs) to manage and record the activities required by clients or to manage various other external queries that NPs need to address.

NON-PROFIT and the other side of the coin (or the first one?)

After all, this is, in my opinion, the bottom line of their functioning. Helping clients is the reason and purpose of establishing a non-profit organization. The fact that they need external resources to fund these activities, and Salesforce is an excellent tool for keeping track of them, is essential but secondary. Some NPs only distribute the raised funds, but there is a large group of those NPs that use the money to fund various assistance or consulting programs. In this article, I will focus on this aspect.

On the one hand, there is the collection and management of donations in the form of financial or non-financial assistance and their use based on some parameters – you can manage that by the basic NON-PROFIT package.

On the other hand, NPS use the donations for the different types of support that have come to them as external requests or queries (referred to as CASES in Salesforce):

Examples of cases:

• Send bag or pick up a bag (from donors);
• Find accommodation;
• Provide resources;
• Provide service;
• Find temporary custody;
• Find a sponsor;
• Courses, teaching;
• Consulting;
• Helpline, rescue services. 

How can SC resolve cases faster?

Thanks to the system on which it is built:

• Enter data into the system faster;
• Assign a case with tasks manually, or the system assigns and redistributes it   automatically;
• Knowledge database will help you solve it;
• Have a real-time overview, and you will not forget about any case.

 
Which features of SC are interesting for NPs?

• Case tracking is particularly suitable for programs that require the fulfillment of incremental steps and begin with the opening and end with the closing of a case (teaching, training, retraining or other courses, etc.).
• Escalation of cases that were not resolved within the stated time.
• Requesting the approval of a specific case through the process if the case requires so.
• Various forms of communication and receiving requests: mail, SMS, phone, communities, web, e-mail, social networks, webchat.
• Automatization of processes that can run in the background or while working on the case.
• Automatization of activities through productive tools such as inserting Quick Text (pre-prepared text), Macros (a recorded series of steps that run automatically).
• Ensuring confidentiality if the case requires so – by setting the case access correctly.
• Integration to mail clients (Gmail, Outlook).
• Analytical and visual tools – Do you need to know the results of your work and use their presentation for your sponsors or to promote a relationship with the public. In that case, the options of reports and dashboards (screens with outputs of several reports in graphical or tabular form) are ready for you that you can filter with a single click.
• You have all the information about clients, their needs, previous interactions with you, in one place, which is an incredible time saving not only when acquiring the information but especially when working with cases.
• You can support your activities outside the computer with a mobile version and always be informed.
• If you have many cases and more people working on them, you can use the omnichannel option to redirect cases according to specific conditions (expertise or current availability).

 
In the case of a helpline or other similar services, including the consulting:

• If the questions are of a similar, recurring nature, use a chatbot fed with relevant answers – this will help you in situations of temporary increased interest (e.g. situations like obtaining information or seeking advice in the case of Covid-19).
• If you have a large proportion of phone cases, it’s great to integrate phone services directly into Salesforce or use Lightning Dialer instead of a telephone exchange (at an additional cost).
• Have you hired some newcomers? – you can help them by setting up a process of recommended steps and a knowledge base or common space available for communication with colleagues without interrupting communication with clients.
• Reduce the need for personnel and, with the help of Salesforce, create a community space where clients can find the information, they need themselves, or discuss in forums and instead use the money to help clients.

 
Sequential process – PATH

In the same way as you can set up a path to track the process of addressing sponsors and collecting donations, you can also set up a way to track status when handling cases, so it will be immediately clear to everyone in what stage the case is.

 

Entitlement process – tracking the fulfillment of milestones over time

If you need to track the time perspective, you can use the entitlement process with set milestones with specific actions that will happen when they are completed or violated.

Aren’t things that Salesforce has already created enough for you? You can easily create specific objects without programming knowledge or use applications on Appexchange that someone has already created – you will find many of them as free versions.

As NON-PROFIT organizations, you perform a very worthy and admirable work, and in many cases, you substitute the social function of the state, yet you still have to seek funds to finance that.

Why not take advantage of the potential that Salesforce offers without extra licensing fees.

As NP, you have 10 licenses available free of charge, and to use the Service Cloud (SC), it is enough to allow 10 users to use the SC license.

From an efficiency point of view, you may not have to be accountable to shareholders or owners, neither you operate in a highly competitive environment where even a small mistake could cost you a client. So those reasons do not have to be the primary impulse for implementing the system. But perhaps you will agree with me, that you can get a good feeling not only from the fact that you helped but also from knowing that it has been done correctly and cost-effectively and quickly towards the client.

In this article, you can read a general introduction to Salesforce for Non-profits.

Martina Romanová, Salesforce consultant