This month saw the second annual Salesforce.org nonprofit Summit take place. This global, virtual event featured conversations with a number of high profile nonprofit organisations talking about how the Salesforce platform has helped them maximise their impact.

I was lucky enough to tune into this year’s event, so I thought I’d outline a few takeaways. Perhaps this may inspire some of you to attend next year’s summit. Who knows… maybe I’ll see you there!

#1 Salesforce’s Nonprofit Community are a Supportive and Collaborative Bunch

It never fails to amaze and inspire me when I see how collaborative and supportive those who work within the nonprofit community are. This year’s nonprofit Summit encouraged this culture through a mixture of collaborative conversations, with product experts giving real-time answers to attendees questions, and hands-on training sessions.
If you’re looking for a taste of this community spirit, Salesforce’s Trailhead platform is full of really helpful nonprofit focussed groups that you can become a member of. In addition, you can find out about future events taking place.

#2 Relationships are Everything

It is no secret that the fostering of meaningful relationships is at the core of a nonprofit success.

This year’s summit  explored the management of these relationships and how it’s  changed, considering the global shift to communication via digital channels.

We saw demos showing how Salesforce’s native functionality can contribute to the creation of personalised experiences for partners and supporters. For example, we saw how organisations may use Salesforce’s Experience Cloud as a means of engaging with their partners and supporters.

Could this be something your organisation could use?

#3 The Importance of a Digital Strategy

For me, one of the more inspirational conversations of the event was hearing about World Central Kitchen (WCK) and how they operate.

WCK provide meals in response to humanitarian, climate, and community crises. José Andrés, WCK’s founder, explained in an interview how it was in the culture of their organisation to adapt to situations, often in times of crisis.

The organisation spoke about how they embrace the use of digital technologies to advance their mission. For example, the organisation embraces the use of social media to find out where help is required so they can react quickly when needed.

I felt there was a lesson to learn here. A clearly defined digital strategy can be key in advancing an organisations’ mission.

Something to think about in the second half of 2022.

#4 Data! Data! Data!

There’s no denying it… consistent, valuable data is critical for success.

The event picked up on this as a key theme. The event maintained that the effective management and use of data allows both for impact to be measured and a culture of data-lead decision to be nurtured.

We heard from Mary’s Meals, a global organisation that serves healthy school meals to children living in some of the world’s most economically deprived countries.

We heard the about how data management was key to their growth and how their use of Salesforce was fundamental for their data strategy.

Salesforce became the organisation’s single source of truth, centralising the organisation’s data. Effective data-lead decision making because of effective data management, has contributed to the organisation having now fed over 2 million children to date.

#5 The Exciting Future of Salesforce’s Nonprofit Cloud

Moving forwards, Salesforce have made it clear that they are focussing their product development around addressing some of the key findings from Salesforce’s Nonprofit Trends Report.

Salesforce are focusing on creating a platform that encourages data driven decision making, fosters a relationship centric approach and culture, and delivers on their promise to create a connected experience for those working within or supporting nonprofit.

The future of Nonprofit Cloud is bright!