Calling all trailblazers, visionaries, and changemakers! Get ready for the most empowering conference of the year: Dreamin’ In Color 2023. We are thrilled to announce that from June 14th to 16th, the vibrant city of Raleigh, North Carolina, will be the epicenter of inspiration, knowledge sharing, and connection for current and aspiring Black professionals in the Salesforce ecosystem.

Dreamin’ In Color is not just a conference; it’s a movement. It’s a celebration of the resilience, talent, and achievements of Black Salesforce professionals, with a mission to empower individuals to thrive and succeed in their careers and businesses. This is an event for those who refuse to let obstacles define them, who are committed to making an impact, and who believe in the power of diversity and inclusion.

As proud sponsors of Dreamin’ In Color, we at Exponent Partners are honored to support the growth and development of Black Salesforce professionals. We understand that diversity, equity, and inclusion are not mere buzzwords, but essential elements of creating a thriving ecosystem where everyone can thrive. And that’s why we are excited to send our remarkable team members, Mandy Kutschied and Deborah Castillero, to represent Exponent Partners at this transformative event.

Mandy Kutschied, our Vice President of Talent & Culture, brings a wealth of experience in human resources across various sectors. With a deep passion for diversity, equity, and inclusion work, Mandy is a compassionate collaborator who seeks innovative solutions and leads with integrity. She is dedicated to creating an inclusive and engaging workplace environment, where every individual can thrive. If you’re interested in joining the Exponent Partners team, connect with Mandy on LinkedIn and explore our open positions.

Joining Mandy is Deborah Castillero, an accomplished Account Executive responsible for driving revenue and partnerships on the West Coast. Deborah’s background includes impressive roles as Chief Growth Officer, Executive Director, and Strategic Sponsorship Officer, where she has excelled in building partnerships, driving growth, and empowering underrepresented communities. With her expertise in multicultural marketing strategies and her commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion advocacy, Deborah is a true force of change.

We have identified two big priorities in attending this event in Raleigh. The first is to learn firsthand from new and seasoned Black Salesforce professionals in a conference setting that highlights and celebrates their contributions to the Salesforce ecosystem. We also want to share the opportunities that are available for professionals at Salesforce implementation and ISV partners like our company.  We are participating in the hiring fair to promote the roles we are actively recruiting for at our company. Interested to learn more? Check out our open positions. We are always looking to connect with interested candidates. Don’t miss the opportunity to connect with Mandy Kutschied on the Whova app if you are attending Dreamin’ in Color.

Dreamin’ In Color 2023 is an event where connections are made, knowledge is shared, and opportunities are unlocked. It’s a gathering of like-minded individuals who believe in the potential of every individual to make a difference. From inspiring keynote speeches to interactive workshops and engaging networking sessions, this conference is designed to equip you with the tools, insights, and inspiration you need to excel in the Salesforce ecosystem.

So mark your calendars and get ready to be part of something extraordinary. Dreamin’ In Color 2023 is not just a conference—it’s a movement that will ignite your passion, expand your horizons, and empower you to create a brighter future. Together, let’s redefine what’s possible and shatter any limitations standing in our way.

Stay tuned for more updates and exciting announcements as we countdown to Dreamin’ In Color 2023. We can’t wait to see you in Raleigh, where dreams become reality, and where a generation of Black professionals will rise, thrive, and leave an indelible mark on the Salesforce ecosystem. Learn more and register for the event here. 

Let’s Dream in Color and make history together!

During TrailblazerDX, Salesforce introduced Einstein GPT, a groundbreaking generative Artificial Intelligence for CRMs. Inspired by Albert Einstein’s belief that “intelligence lies not in storing information but in knowing where to find it,” this innovative technology is set to revolutionize nonprofit operations. Nonprofit organizations grapple with storing vast amounts of data, and the true potential lies in their ability to uncover and utilize that data for maximum impact.

With Salesforce’s Einstein GPT, nonprofits have an unprecedented opportunity to enhance their efficiency and make a greater impact by tapping into its vast capabilities. Once generally available, Einstein GPT will seamlessly integrate into every Salesforce Cloud, including the New Nonprofit Cloud, and be compatible with managed packages like NPSP. At Exponent Partners, we are thrilled to present seven powerful ways your nonprofit can leverage this intelligent tool to discover new avenues for success.

Skyrocket Nonprofit Marketing:

Einstein GPT enables you to generate personalized content across various channels, including email, mobile, web, and advertising. While it won’t generate new ideas, it can save you time by producing content that aligns with your brand guidelines and marketing plans. This allows you to focus on effectively marketing your fundraising campaigns and engaging your audience.

Marketing teams can also use Einstein GPT to automate email communication, including email responses to common inquiries, donation acknowledgments, volunteer communications, and event invitations. The model can learn from historical email data from Salesforce and generate personalized and contextually relevant responses.

Ignite Donor Engagement:

Crafting custom emails to prospective donors is made effortless with Einstein GPT. Utilizing data such as previous gifts, giving capacity, inclination, and location, you can deliver personalized messages that resonate with each donor. Furthermore, Einstein GPT can generate comprehensive donor briefs, providing your team with valuable insights and previous interactions to enhance donor meetings.

Unleash Efficiency with Reports:

Einstein GPT can analyze data stored in Salesforce and extract insights, trends, and key metrics from large datasets. This simplifies the process of creating comprehensive reports for stakeholders, board members, and grant applications, saving you time and effort.

Unify Collaboration with Slack:

For organizations that rely on Slack for document sharing, communication, and collaboration, Einstein GPT can integrate seamlessly. This integration enables the delivery of summaries and updates, ensuring all essential information is accessible in one consolidated platform.

Craft Compelling Fundraising Pages:

With Einstein GPT for Marketing Cloud, your development team can create captivating landing page templates and compelling campaign messaging for events or time-sensitive fundraising campaigns. Adding elements to the landing page is as simple as a single click, and Einstein GPT can even suggest relevant images, titles, and forms to enhance your page.

Streamline Grant Proposals:

Writing compelling grant proposals is a crucial task for any nonprofit. Einstein GPT can assist by providing suggestions, relevant content, and formatting assistance based on existing proposal templates and successful grant applications. This guidance helps you generate high-quality drafts efficiently.

Automate Event Management:

Einstein GPT takes event management to the next level. Not only can it create an engaging landing page for your event, but it can also generate content for invitations, reminders, and follow-up messages. By automating these tasks, you can allocate more time and energy to building exceptional events that inspire attendees to contribute to your cause.

Conclusion:

The future of nonprofits is brimming with possibilities as Einstein GPT continues to evolve within its closed pilot. Salesforce’s unwavering commitment to innovation means this powerful tool is constantly improving, offering even greater benefits to organizations like yours.

For forward-thinking nonprofits, these tools hold the key to a new era of productivity and intuition. Imagine reimagining how your organization operates in the modern world, revolutionizing your business processes and achieving unprecedented impact. However, it is crucial to approach these solutions mindfully, aligning them with your organization’s values and goals. The future is bright, inviting you to seize the transformative power of Einstein GPT and propel your nonprofit’s mission forward. Reach out to our team at Exponent Partners, and together we will unlock the limitless possibilities of Salesforce technology, empowering your organization to thrive and drive your mission into the future.

Redefining our strategies to maximize social impact for nonprofits.

Our purpose at Exponent Partners is to help changemaking nonprofits achieve their missions through radically better use of information systems. And in the almost twenty years we’ve been doing this for nearly one thousand clients, we have witnessed plenty of change in all aspects of that work. 

While the landscape evolves around us, we also must adapt to better fulfill our own mission and to create exceptional mission value for our nonprofit clients. Today, Exponent Partners is sharpening its focus and adapting its strategies — all in service of radically better social impact! 

Organizational Agility. Like many organizations in our industry, we’ve seen staff attrition and had to reshape our workforce for our ongoing financial strength and sustainability. And at the same time we are flattening and more tightly focusing the organization for a leaner, more adaptable, more team-oriented Exponent Partners. This directly benefits our clients, our staff, and our mission.

New Leaders. We strengthened our executive team with impactful leadership additions in the second half of 2022. Stacie Pallotta is Exponent Partners’ new COO, and brings extensive client success, strategy execution, and organizational transformation experience to our sector. Lisa Wallace is our VP of Business Development, and brings deep nonprofit and public sector experience to her reset of sales, partnership, and marketing strategies and execution.

Focus on Changemakers.  Our market focus is not changing – we serve social impact changemakers! These are the innovators whose program models and theories of change will transform the sector. This includes human services and education organizations who implement direct services programs to create change, as well as foundations and philanthropic organizations who catalyze change through funding and investment. 

Services First. We continue to standardize rapid, high-value implementation of best practices for nonprofits rather than favoring a more artisanal approach. Productization of configured features, standard functionality, and business applications (such as our ECM product) remains a key strategy for greater client impact, time-to-value, and manageability of information systems. That work will be primarily focused on the NPC platform going forward. 

Exponent Partners supports the entire nonprofit lifecycle, serving clients from the digital transformation strategy through building an information systems (IS) platform to running efficient and effective operations with the help of our managed services. 

All-in on Salesforce Innovation. Whole-organization, whole-system digital transformation requires mission platforms that innovate rapidly, support sophisticated solutions, and can expand from ‘system of record’ to ‘system of engagement’ to ‘system of insight.’ Salesforce, and particularly the new Nonprofit Cloud (NPC) product vision  – based on the core platform with industry common components – remains the clear platform winner for the nonprofit sector. 

We are building the next-generation services firm – creating the next level of information systems value for our world’s vital changemaking organizations. Will you join us on this journey into the future?

Recently, our team had the incredible opportunity to attend the highly anticipated Salesforce World Tour events in both Washington, DC, and New York. These events brought together industry leaders, Salesforce enthusiasts, and technology enthusiasts from around the globe. With a plethora of insightful sessions and immersive experiences, the events left us inspired, informed, and eager to share our experiences. In this blog, we’ll delve into the key highlights of Salesforce World Tour DC and World Tour NY, and shed light on our favorite sessions, including “Meet the New Nonprofit Cloud.”

The Event Experience:

Salesforce World Tour events are known for their energetic and dynamic atmosphere, and this year’s DC and NY editions were no exception. The events provided a platform for attendees to learn about the latest Salesforce innovations, discover success stories, and network with like-minded professionals. The exhibition areas showcased cutting-edge solutions from Salesforce partners, giving attendees a firsthand look at how these technologies could transform their organizations. The vibrant and collaborative environment created an optimal setting for knowledge-sharing and fostering new connections.

Favorite Sessions:

“Meet the New Nonprofit Cloud”:

One of our standout sessions was “Meet the New Nonprofit Cloud,” available on-demand on Salesforce+. This session unveiled Salesforce’s new vision for Nonprofit Cloud, a comprehensive solution that supports program management, case management, fundraising, grantmaking, outcomes, and marketing engagement. It highlighted the importance of collaboration, data-driven decision-making, and simplified measurement of outcomes. The new Nonprofit Cloud provides a new industry-based approach free of the burden of managed packages that facilitates greater cross-sector tooling and impact. We are incredibly excited about the innovations happening with the new Nonprofit Cloud and the opportunities it presents for nonprofits to drive greater impact. Visit Salesforce+ to watch this session and explore the full potential of Salesforce for your organization’s success.

“Introduction to Data Cloud for Nonprofits”

Nonprofit research organization Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory shared their marketing use case for Salesforce Data Cloud, where data from multiple systems was harmonized in order to leverage a single view of supporters to be solicited by email. For the Laboratory, various research departments had chosen their own unique systems and a larger change management initiative to consolidate all data in Salesforce had not been achieved – and in some cases would not be possible. This session shared how the use of Data Cloud allowed them to maintain a single “golden record” for their constituents in order to share a common view and speak in a common voice via an integrated, cohesive communications strategy. 

The newly launched Data Cloud provides a unique solution for evolving data management requirements by organizations with a breadth of systems and data types. In this case, Data Cloud serves as the “data lake house” within a layer design with one or more data repositories. This architecture enables the synchronization of structured and unstructured data, making for faster access to timely unified data on which to take action, or from which to derive advanced cross-functional insights. We’re excited to explore with our clients other impact-oriented use cases for Data Cloud.

“How to Connect Your Data and Leverage AI with Service Cloud”

In this session, we gained valuable insights into the power of connecting data and leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) with Salesforce Service Cloud. The session emphasized the importance of providing exceptional client experiences and highlighted how Service Cloud’s AI capabilities can enhance efficiency and personalize interactions. We learned about the seamless integration of data from various sources and how AI-driven insights can empower organizations to make data-driven decisions and deliver proactive service. This session left us inspired to explore the possibilities of leveraging AI to optimize the nonprofit human services client experience where organizations are using Service Cloud to support call centers or other similar at-scale support use cases. 

Salesforce+:

Some of our favorite sessions are available for you to watch on-demand on Salesforce+, a free streaming platform that offers a wealth of content, including sessions from events like Salesforce World Tour. Salesforce+ brings together thought leaders, experts, and professionals to share knowledge and insights on various topics. It’s an excellent resource for staying updated on the latest innovations and best practices. Visit Salesforce+ to explore the sessions and unlock the full potential of Salesforce for your organization’s success.

Conclusion:

Salesforce World Tour DC and World Tour NY were truly remarkable events that had a profound impact on our team. The sessions we attended, such as “Meet the New Nonprofit Cloud,” “How to Connect Your Data and Leverage AI with Service Cloud,” and “Introduction to Data Cloud for Nonprofits,” delivered invaluable insights and inspiration. These sessions covered a wide range of topics, including leveraging data to drive program impact for nonprofits and understanding the power of the Data Cloud.

We strongly encourage you to experience the excitement for yourself by checking out the on-demand videos available on Salesforce+. Immerse yourself in the knowledge and expertise shared by industry leaders and learn about the groundbreaking innovations that can transform your organization.

Our Vice President of Business Development, Lisa Wallace, perfectly captured our sentiments when she expressed, “attending these events and witnessing the unveiling of the new Nonprofit Cloud in a public forum has only reinforced our passion for leveraging Salesforce solutions to create a significant impact for the nonprofits we serve.”

If you’re ready to explore the remarkable innovations of the new Nonprofit Cloud and discover the possibilities it holds for your organization, we invite you to contact us today. It’s time to embrace the extraordinary power of Salesforce and unlock new horizons for your organization’s success and mission. Let us help you make a difference in the world.

Technology Bridges the Gap Between Revenue and Expense for FY 24

For many of us, spring is a very positive time of year, filled with warmer weather, more hours of daylight, and plans for a myriad of outdoor activities.  For nonprofit executives, the time is also marked by planning and executing the agency budgeting process for what is typically a new fiscal year beginning July 1.  Through this process, however, an Executive Director or CEO’s positive, hopeful spring thoughts are often replaced with significant stress and perhaps even dread.  The fiscal year budgeting process often feels daunting, as multiple programmatic and organizational priorities clash with each other and then again with revenue realities.  

This guide discusses these fiscal challenges and the role technology can play in helping nonprofit organizations have greater confidence in their ability to raise the funds necessary to bridge the gap between expenses and current revenue realities, versus exacting budget cuts.  Data-rich organizations can focus on increasing the probability of winning grants, projecting specific increases in individual donations and fee for service revenue, and ultimately achieving sustainability.

Programmatic Priorities: Programs will want to meet what is usually a never-ending increase in demand for the organization’s services or perhaps even more comprehensively serve the individuals and families currently enrolled in programs.  To this end, proposed program budgets will likely reflect new staff positions and perhaps suggest additional program space and/or new subcontracting partners.  Of course, program leadership will also likely push for salary increases to support morale and minimize turnover.  Today, the pressure on organizations to pay competitively is intense, as turnover is not only financially costly but generally has a negative impact on service delivery and meeting funder expectations due to disruptions in service relationships.  

Organizational Priorities:  An organization’s Executive will also hear from the likes of the CFO, COO, as well as Human Resources and Development offices during this budgeting process.  Administrative divisions will express concern with increasing capacity, as nonprofit infrastructure generally pales in comparison to the demands.  Further, there are the normal inflationary increases to the cost of doing business – everything from office equipment and supplies to insurance costs, and if the organization supports physical spaces, the COO will likely present a list of capital improvements that can no longer be put off. 

Revenue Realities:  So, in light of all these demands, what are the likely revenue realities? While an Executive may have found listening to all the plans and demands program leaders may have for the new year stressful, especially when combined with the concerns over the organization’s infrastructure capacity and capital challenges, the need for a powerful stress anecdote really presents itself when an Executive reviews the coming fiscal year’s revenue realities.  While most organizations enjoy some multi-year commitments from government, private philanthropy, and perhaps even some individual donors or board members, the majority of an organization’s annual budget must be earned each and every fiscal year.  This presents two additional, inter-related stresses.  First, this financial reality almost always causes a significant gap between revenue and expense in the overall agency budget, even with tempered demands for growth and expansion.  Second, in order to present a balanced budget for the organization, the mandate for any well-managed nonprofit, the Executive will have to either make budget cuts and/or predict how the shortfall will be fundraised before June, 2024.  

Executives naturally will want to avert having to make cuts.  So, in lieu of a crystal ball, Executives typically meet with the CFO, Senior Director of Development, and perhaps other key organization leaders, identify potential revenue sources for the new fiscal year, and then plug these sources into categories, such as: a long shot, a maybe, and an almost sure thing.  For example, revenue projections for fee for service programs, individual giving, and special events may each be increased in such a graded fashion, especially if the organization saw success in these categories in the present fiscal year and economic forecasting suggested stability or even growth over the next twelve to sixteen months. In most instances, however, agency executives will need to look to possible private and corporate foundation grants to help close budget gaps.  An Executive once told me, foundation grantmaking is the “mortar” between the “bricks” – revenue sources such as service fees and government contracts – at a nonprofit organization.  Indeed, in so many nonprofits of all sizes, foundation grants tend to be that glue, allowing an organization to serve more clients, offer new and necessary services to the community, or in special cases, support a capital project or offer unrestricted funds for critical infrastructure development.  In a 2017 article entitled, “How to Predict Grant Revenue”, ELEVATE Grant Writing Services offered a similar mathematical formula as mentioned above for predicting potential grant revenue, along with some helpful, additional guidance.  The authors recommended sliding scale percentages be assigned to potential sources based on four key determinants: 

• the organization’s history with the foundation; 
• how large an amount is requested; 
• the length of time an Executive Director has been with the organization and their networking skills; and 
• the extent to which the proposal focuses on a current public priority area.

The result percentage, based on the answers to these four determinants, is then multiplied by the grant amount requested, and the answer is then plugged into the organization’s annual budget.  Prediction by prediction, the Executive and leadership team begin to chip away at the organization’s projected operating deficit.

According to A Beginner’s Guide to Winning More Grants for your Nonprofit, there are more than 87,000 foundations currently in operation, having to give away at least 5% of the average market value of their net investment assets every year. So, increasing an organization’s win percentage could have a tremendous impact on agency budget deficits.  While the mathematical formulation recommended by ELEVATE Grant Writing Services in 2017 seems well-tested, what if there was a way to substantially increase the probability of winning grants, as well as confidently projecting specific increases in individual donations and fee for service revenue? Is such a stress anecdote out there for nonprofit executives spending their spring days mired in dread?

Agencies that make an investment in a quality case management solution will find that they are able to have greater confidence in predicting future revenue generation, because they can speak to program impact in quantitative terms that many foundations, individual donors, and potential customers require.  

Perhaps more so than government agencies that are primarily concerned about an organization’s capacity to enroll participants and deliver services, private and corporate foundations are additionally concerned about an organization’s capacity to create impact.  To what extent can the organization speak to its impact – the way in which participants’ lives change for the better as a result of program participation?  Serendipitously, such qualitative impact data could also be a game changer at speaking engagements with potential individual donors as well as for online donors whose giving tends to be based on data relative to impact that is shared on the organization’s website, other social media platforms, as well as resources like Charity Navigator.  Such data on an organization’s website could also generate many new customers for an organization’s fee for service programs, even in or perhaps even more likely in tighter economic conditions.  

A Powerful Fundraising Tool: A quality case management solution provides development teams with all the data they need in one place to:

• answer the questions posed by individual donors; 
• produce annual reports that provide a 360° view of the organization that not only speaks to service numbers but impact; 
• continuously and easily update social media statistics; 
• speak to organizational experience in government RFPs; and 
• elevate program impact to private and corporate foundations.  

Imagine what impression a potential major donor might have of an organization that is able to provide answers to questions within 24 hours.  Imagine how being able to speak to utilization and impact in real time on the agency website might drive increases in online donations.  According to Ilma Ibrisevic in her blog, “15 Techniques to Boost Donor Acquisition, “More than ever, millennials and Gen Z seek out information about which nonprofits to donate to on social media. Although these young generations still do not make the biggest donations, their impact and donor value is increasing every day.”  Over and over in philanthropy research, foundations responded that the number one reason they deny a grant request is that it does not match the foundation’s priorities.  Imagine being able to send targeted outreach and proposals out for specifically those areas with projected fiscal year shortfalls.  According to numerous research studies in philanthropic giving, the number one reason a foundation denies a grant application is due to the lack of alignment with the foundation’s priorities.  Knowing exactly the programs that need additional funding can guide targeted research into the foundations funding similar programs.  Even further, with all the organization’s data in one place, development teams are not slowed down waiting for calculations and reporting from program staff and as a result, can generate significantly more philanthropic requests and reports to secured foundations.  

Beyond measuring impact, a quality case management solution will also afford organizations the opportunity to not only secure additional funding from the aforementioned sources but also increase the changes for coveted multi-year funding by demonstrating an exceptional ability to be great stewards of the money awarded.

A Powerful Quality Assurance Tool: A quality case management solution provides leadership teams with real time dashboards that reflect the success of agency programs.  Such data in real time is a critical tool for individual and team supervision, as well as ensuring audit and site visit preparedness.  Dashboards also support continuous quality improvement via strategic conversations around how a program model may be tweaked to influence everything from better enrollment and utilization to more significant positive change or impact on those who participate.  When these “mid-flight adjustments” do not produce the change in outcome data, organizations do not need to dread a mid-year call to the funder.  Contrary to perhaps popular opinion, foundations are not opposed to hearing mid-year bad news relative to program performance.  It demonstrates the organization is keeping its eye on the ball, is invested in impact, is a good steward of the funds provided, and sees the foundation as a thought partner.  Ultimately, whether the model is tweaked or replaced, such regular, ongoing conversations can better ensure positive year-end reporting and definitely keeps these philanthropists impressed and therefore consistently generous. 

A Powerful Fiscal Management Tool: A quality case management solution not only provides real time dashboards that inform leaders relative to programmatic success, but can also layer in data relative to fundraising performance and fiscal data such as fee for service revenue.  Perhaps this spring, a nonprofit leader can take a higher level of risk relative to revenue projections knowing that the dashboard will allow for timely corrective action, if necessary.  Additionally, a shortfall on monthly or quarterly fundraising goals might be offset by better than expected revenue generation in fee for service programs or vice versa.  A leader will have this data in real time in order to continuously plot a timely fiscal course.  Finally, amongst key findings in a Donor Loyalty Study was the fact that individual donors are most likely to give to nonprofits they can trust and that trust is defined by a sense that the nonprofit spends donated money wisely.  Even better news is that these donors tend to evenly divide their giving between restricted and unrestricted gifts.  Finally, and equally important to both individual donors and foundations, a quality CRM will support an organization in keeping infrastructure costs down by automating many formerly time-intensive job functions.  Lower infrastructure costs means that an organization can maximize the percentage of every donated or granted dollar spent on programs, and from there make some meaningful ROI calculations.

At Exponent Partners, we’re passionate about building information systems that empower nonprofits to create radically better impact. Our outcomes-focused approach leverages the full potential of people and technology to achieve its goals. Our flagship product, Exponent Case Management, is a customizable and user-friendly system that provides real-time data insights to program and agency leadership. 

Our team of industry experts is committed to delivering exceptional results by leveraging their expertise in implementing various case management functionalities on the Salesforce platform, such as NCCM, PMM, and the new Nonprofit Cloud Case Management. With our team of experts, you can be assured that your nonprofit will have the necessary support to take your impact to the next level.

Moreover, we can implement fundraising systems on Salesforce, providing nonprofits with an all-in-one system that streamlines agency and impact management. As your partner, we understand the unique challenges that nonprofits face and are here to provide support and guidance in taking your organization to the next level.

Don’t hesitate to contact us today to learn more about how Exponent Partners can empower your nonprofit to create a lasting impact on your community. Our team is always ready to assist you in achieving your goals.

Benefits for Streamlined Human Services Intake and Assessments

Nonprofit Cloud: What it means to human services organizations

Now that the new next generation Nonprofit Cloud has been announced, Exponent Partners is looking ahead to the benefits that this innovation provides to human services organizations and nonprofits that aspire to manage programs, cases, outcomes, and fundraising on the world’s #1 CRM platform. With the move away from managed packages to core functionality, the Nonprofit Cloud benefits from a host of industry common components that will effectively change the way organizations manage services and benefits, not to mention the enhanced experience that clients receive. With this in mind, let’s take a look at how some of these powerful components will provide benefits to nonprofits, beginning with the intake assessment process.

Expertise with nonprofits on Salesforce

Since 2005, Exponent Partners has helped human services nonprofits optimize their programs and case management. Our wealth of expertise around best practices helps organizations provide the right services in the most efficient way possible by leveraging a well-designed information systems platform – in this case, Salesforce. We understand how critical it is to connect recipients with the programs and services they need in a timely manner. And we know how important it is to consider all the data gathered during the intake and assessment process to ensure that recipients are on the right path to the best outcomes. The new innovative vision for nonprofits that Salesforce and partners are realizing includes the use of industry common components in the new Nonprofit Cloud to enable more intelligent and streamlined intake that provides benefits to the recipient, the power users doing the critical work of managing cases and programs, and the admins who support these processes.

Powerful tools to enhance the client experience

Using new tools like OmniStudio and Business Rules Engine (BRE), the path from first touchpoint to first service delivery becomes smarter. In the past, assessments were rather linear, and dependencies with conditional logic were more cumbersome to configure. With the interface options provided by Omnistudio and the dynamic options that BRE affords, assessments become more flexible and intelligent, driving recommendations based on recipient input. This frees counselors or case managers to focus more on the people at the heart of the process rather than the process itself. For example, in the past, a “dynamic” intake may have required screen flows or Dynamic Forms for Lightning record pages, and it relied on a lot of validation rules to ensure the right conditions were met in order to move to the next step in the assessment process. With Omnistudio’s OmniScripts and BRE’s powerful engine driving conditional logic, we see the future of intake assessments being methodical and relevant throughout every step of the process. This gives the recipient a better experience, and if intake is self-service (e.g. on a tablet or kiosk in a community center), it also provides an attractive user interface that enhances the experience that recipients have right from the first moment they begin to seek services.

A future of streamlined service delivery

The result is a dynamic assessment that drives recommendations based on input and effectively hides irrelevant or unnecessary questions to streamline the steps that case managers use to connect people with the services they need. The industry common components are able to process the information collected in the intake and automatically create action plans, care plans, or benefit recommendations. This can reduce potential bias in service delivery and also streamline the delivery of services that would most benefit the client while still allowing the case manager to make additional decisions based on their experience. This reduces the time to service for the recipient, and provides a more efficient workflow for the power user at the heart of the system. After all, people are who create impact, not software. So why not let the software do the work of parsing data, allowing the people providing services and receiving services to focus on their next steps with clarity and ease?

Templates to speed up innovation

Omnistudio also provides a host of benefits to admins and partners configuring the platform for organizations. Salesforce has announced that alongside Omnistudio, there will also be a library of Omniscript templates that can be leveraged to quickly configure assessments appropriately and without the need to reinvent the wheel every time. These scripts can be leveraged both internally for admins and power users and externally, enhancing the recipient experience as well as making the day to day work of tracking program participants, services, service providers, and referrals easier. These templates and the power of Omnistudio, combined with the flexibility and dynamic nature of Business Rules Engine, give the Salesforce admin more options, and more powerful ones at that, to create and sustain a business process that works for their organization and provides a scalable path to future innovation.

Notice we did not say that this part will be easier! Rather, it will be more important than ever for organizations to prioritize the admin role, and for the system administrators themselves to stay on top of enhanced functionality, change management, and new releases.

The important role of implementation partners

And of course that is where Exponent Partners can help! In addition to our advisory and implementation services for standing up the new Nonprofit Cloud, Exponent Partners has expert and managed services offerings to handle these ongoing critical functions and plan for future innovation while incorporating best practices. We can also provide or extend your admin capabilities with Virtual Administration (VA) services that replace or augment internal resources and keep everything running smoothly. As one of the longest-tenured Salesforce partners dedicated to human services nonprofits, we are excited to provide these services to help forward-thinking organizations create lasting social change through their use of technology.

Trailhead modules to get you started

• Nonprofit Cloud for Programs Case Management: Quick Look
• Manage Programs with Nonprofit Cloud
• Nonprofit Cloud for Programs: Quick Look

If you are interested in learning more about the new Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud, please reach out to chat about how tools like Omnistudio and Business Rules Engine can help your organization more efficiently and effectively fulfill its mission.