Jake Van Buschbach 0:00
Hey everybody, I hope you're having a great day. My name is Jake from umbrella IT services and today we're gonna be talking about Salesforce for nonprofits with my good friend Emily Panetta from makeweight. Emily is a business systems analyst working in the charitable sector sector sorry. And she spent the last five years empowering charitable initiatives through technologies like Salesforce. If you could please leave a like on this video it really helps Emily and I out. If you want to see more videos like this then please subscribe to the channel. If you have a suggestion for a future video, please leave a comment below or email us at Tech Tips at umbrella it services.ca keeping sight on the core on your core mission while increasing revenue and tracking expenditures on a tight budget can be incredibly overwhelming without the right systems and tools for any charitable organization. Thankfully, Emily is here today to help us break down some practical solutions and strategies that nonprofits can implement using the free tool Salesforce for nonprofits. So today Emily is going to help us learn about some of the common challenges being faced by nonprofits. During COVID-19, and how her business has helped them overcome these challenges, work, she's also going to be helping us learn about why she believes Salesforce for nonprofits is the ideal solution for most nonprofits, how to implement these tools without paying for software licenses and avoiding common pitfalls. And she's also going to help us learn some strategies to get the most out of your client resource management software. And we're going to go over a couple of other topics as well. So we're gonna have timestamps in the description now, for each topic in case you want to jump around to a specific bit of information during the interview. So with all that out of the way, thank you again, Emily, very much for coming on today. How's your day going?
Emily Pineda 1:39
Hey, Jake. Um, thanks for having me my days. Going. Well, I'm glad it's Friday, though, and looking forward to the weekend.
Jake Van Buschbach 1:48
That's great. So can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background? I know you've got about five years plus experience right now. But is there anything else that you want people to know about yourself? And how you got into this?
Emily Pineda 2:02
Yeah, so now I'm a business systems analyst for Make way and I'm Salesforce certified. But I have played a number of different roles at three fairly well known nonprofits. Your audience might be familiar with best buddies, Canada Social Capital Partners, and make what used to be tides Canada. And I've worked in programs, partnerships in development, as well as finance and in each of these different departmental roles. Salesforce has really been a huge tool for us in optimizing our processes and allow allowing us to do more with less, which makes me a huge fan girl of the system.
Jake Van Buschbach 2:48
So has every one of these organizations that you've worked with, they all use Salesforce for nonprofits, or do you have experience with other systems as well?
Emily Pineda 2:56
So I'm best buddies, Canada, and make way Use Salesforce when I started and then when I was at Social Capital Partners, we moved from a different program, I won't call them out because we had significant challenges with them. But we moved to Salesforce and we're able to expand our, the reach of our projects, as well as the data we were able to collect for program evaluation and therefore, the appeal that we had to funders, so it really has been a huge
tool and, and hero in the space. In my experience,
Jake Van Buschbach 3:38
that's awesome. What were some of the pain points you had with the other pieces of software?
Emily Pineda 3:43
So, um, we, a big part of our programming was evaluating the pilot program and so a lot of
or the program that we were using
was very manual. So it took so many hours to collect information from our program participants and make sure that was all in the system and pull that out of the system in a way that we could see what was happening and pivot our solutions. Whereas Salesforce has a lot of great easy to use, like automation capacity as well as
like set and forget tools.
So you set things up once
and
and sorry, that things up
once and you're able to see like dashboards on a regular basis scheduled out to the people that need to see them and if someone hasn't gotten come back to you with the data on your program, you can schedule automatic follow ups. And that was just a big piece of our project that was missing and and required a lot of our staff time to follow up on previously.
Jake Van Buschbach 5:08
Gotcha. So yeah, it sounds like a lot of the other programs still haven't really come around to the idea of automation yet. I know that's a really big important thing for a lot of the nonprofit's that we work for. They're usually understaffed and overworked. Like you said, doing more with less is really important. And I've managed to bring a lot of value to our clients in the nonprofit space by helping them automate things, not even necessarily taking care of things or hiring more staff or doing work for them. But just analyzing the regular workflows that they go through every day, and helping them implement technology that's going to automate a lot of that grunt work because, again, linking in an envelope 800 times and mailing it out to people you're trying to fundraise from is not fun, but using a tool like MailChimp, or using a tool like Salesforce makes it much, much easier to do that. Especially if it's fully integrated. So When you're using Salesforce with a lot of these folks, Have you always been using it as a business analyst? or What was your role at these companies before? You mentioned you've recently become a business analyst. So what what were you doing beforehand?
Emily Pineda 6:14
Yeah, so uh, Best Buddies Canada, I started as a program coordinator.
And
there a lot of our coordinator staff, you know, we're not because a lot of the time nonprofits are small, you make do with what you have, but a lot of the coordinator staff aren't trained to pull data regularly music so I'm in really efficient ways. So I saw my coworkers struggling and spending hours each week and they didn't enjoy it. We weren't being efficient. And so I knew that Salesforce was a powerful tool, and I kind of started unofficially being a bit of a business As analysts, Salesforce administrator there, and so that was able to free up several staff people's time. And as a result, we were able to bring on more Best Buddies chapters into our program, which is the point of why we exist. So that's what I was doing there. And then I was also a program coordinator at Social Capital Partners. But when the evaluation database we were using was not meeting any of our needs. And, and this was a pretty robust database. It was designed for us by an evaluation partner. But we couldn't use it as an operational tool.
And it was just clear
that we would not get the evaluation data that we required. So having the unofficial Salesforce experience at best buddies, I mentioned how powerful Salesforce was. And we decided to make the switch. What's really great about it is that you, we didn't have any interruption to our users because we were able to build everything in sandbox first in a in a test environment first. And then also, if you're using additional tools, like as you mentioned MailChimp into so many different companies have integrations already built, that are really easy to install and work with. So you're able to get this 360 degree view of your participants, clients and donors. And that was a big thing that we did not have at all with our previous
system.
Jake Van Buschbach 8:46
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So you have experience building from the ground up with absolutely nothing. And then you also have experience actually transitioning to it from an existing solution. Yeah, okay. That's really good to know. Because like, we have a lot of clients Currently actually better using other CRM in and outside of the nonprofit space. Like there's a financial advisory clinic, very sorry, financial advisory firm. And they're using another provider right now for their CRM software. And it's an absolute mess, barely integrates with Outlook. It doesn't do any sort of phone tracking, it doesn't integrate with any other applications. And they're now looking at moving over to Salesforce. And they've been quoted things like oh, it's 20 grand to move over eight employees over to Salesforce now it's $15,000 to move over just your database alone and, and all these crazy high numbers. In your experience, is it usually that costly for somebody like let's say, an existing nonprofit, maybe 15 staff? What kind of costs Do you usually see when people are moving over? Is this something that they can do themselves? Is it something that you recommend that they bring in a professional to do is is something that Salesforce can do for them? How does it work in your experience,
Emily Pineda 9:59
so
Because Salesforce is such a powerful tool, there are consultants that are able to charge very high hourly rates for implementation. And a lot of the information that you do need is available on online. So it really depends how much time your staff has to be able to do that. So I took the time at Social Capital Partners to learn online and I was able to do that.
Um,
I did have a mentor. And that was a Salesforce developer at that time. So I would say that mix of both was really effective in my experience. So having, trying to do a lot of it yourself, but
having an experienced consultant
to advise with
I would recommend for for nonprofits that are on If I did, if you have that those funds then and then go for it, but if you are really struggling to operate, and that's the approach I would take.
Jake Van Buschbach 11:09
Yeah, I've noticed the same thing as well, I always do the cost versus price analysis, because it's the same thing for it, right? Like, yes, there's a price involved in it. But what is the cost of having one of your eight staff who's already completely overwhelmed also having to deal with things like network security and Wi Fi and getting all of the computers maintained, making sure you have a new system ready for the new person and eventually, the amount of time that they end up spending on this and the amount of errors they have to correct and this kind of stuff for Salesforce configuration I can imagine would be even more overwhelming. So we usually recommend finding a good partner like yourself and your team over there and making sure that you have a fair price from experts who are going to be able to do a good job. So I also apologize about the distractions. I know it's working from Hong Kong season, but we have a guest today apparently So, when you're implementing stuff for folks, is that now what you're really doing day to day or what is your day to day look like
Emily Pineda 12:10
my day to day right now is
very different depending on our organization's needs. So right now, we just went through a name change. And so a lot of my time recently has been spent on ensuring the name wasn't hiding in any of our integrations and also understanding because I wasn't here when they were all built from scratch. So kind of putting together the pieces of how things are built and what affects different parts of what we use and making sure that those are functioning and testing that. Recently, we use Salesforce to ensure that our tax proceeding was compliant without as many many Annual controls. So our process before was very manual and required a lot of oversight. And so Salesforce has a lot of I've mentioned automation, but there's also validation rules,
as well as
well, those are the main pieces
throughout different parts of the process, and
yeah, that's what oh, and we also implemented leads in Salesforce recently to really amplify the impact of our partnership team. So there's a lot of lead marketing tools that Salesforce supplies. And what's great about that is that these are the same tools that top businesses are using because it is the world's leading CRM. So their product does need to compete with other very pricey CRM. So we're really fortunate that Salesforce has this 111 percent model, where they donate 1% of the money that they make as well as 1% of their product. And 1% of their staff time to community. And so nonprofits can get 10 Salesforce license for free. And any additional licenses they can get seven for a 75% discount was
Jake Van Buschbach 14:43
awesome. I didn't know they were doing that. So that so that's that's very cool. I didn't know but the one to one rule there. So you mentioned is the top CRM in the world. So what what is the CRM and what is Salesforce exactly because because what I know it as is is basically what I've learned from people like yourself and again, it's it's a way to Maintain different relationships with vendors and clients and this kind of stuff. But what is CRM stands for? And what is Salesforce? Exactly?
Emily Pineda 15:08
Yeah, good question. Um, CRM sherpur, client
resource management.
So the client resource management solution. So you're able to see your clients data all in one place, which is great. And then it comes with a lot of different tools to engage your clients and,
Unknown Speaker 15:34
and
Emily Pineda 15:35
specifically around productivity and analytics. And I really think it it's starting to go way beyond traditional CRM, because they offer things like community hubs, which allows your clients to talk to one another and they so to build really build support around your movement, and they also offer
what am I trying to think
Unknown Speaker 16:07
of? Sorry, no worries. Um,
Emily Pineda 16:11
community hubs.
Jake Van Buschbach 16:15
Okay, what are some of the? Oh, yeah,
Emily Pineda 16:18
got it. Sorry. Sorry. I'm a big one that we're looking into soon to, hopefully into integrate his knowledge base. So and to save time on on questions that your clients may ask you, like, if you've noticed, websites that have the little chat bots that like, automatically recommend information that you need. That's something that sales force has, like democratized and made very accessible for people.
Yeah.
So there's just they're just they just keep building on and for nonprofits they also recently came out with their their actions. Counting subledger. So we didn't have that when we implemented samples for so right now we integrated
our system
with a third party integration, but Salesforce is just building so many new tools in and becoming more and more powerful.
Jake Van Buschbach 17:20
Yeah, that's great. So they're building knowledge management databases into the tool now.
Emily Pineda 17:26
Yeah, so this can be an add on. So a lot of their basic functionality for nonprofits include like engagement plan, recurring donor management, campaign management, and then as you grow, there's a lot of add on tools that are at an extra costs but are very powerful and, and, and effective and easy to to use. Gotcha. So
Jake Van Buschbach 17:56
so you already listed three of the different common features that Do you have any other ones that are just like you have to have this as a nonprofit? Or what are some of the main features you're using every day from Salesforce, what keeps bringing you back to it?
Emily Pineda 18:11
Um, the main thing.
Honestly, it's just it's such a powerful collaboration tool. And without it, our departments would be very disconnected. And it would take us a lot of time to figure out what's going on with each of our donor opportunities. And so the ability to integrate with all the different things we're using is a big item and then also reducing our data entry is huge. So the, the automations that I mentioned, yeah, that's Bentley, everybody.
Jake Van Buschbach 18:57
We have two special guests.
Emily Pineda 19:01
Um, the the automations are a big part of what keeps us, keeps us running and keeps our donors happy. Gotcha.
Jake Van Buschbach 19:11
So So what size? Do you think it's appropriate for people to start considering using Salesforce? Like, is it appropriate for like one of my clients calls them solopreneurs? Or says one person in the organization? Do you think five people 10 people for our product, for example, we usually recommend that businesses when they hit anywhere between five to 10 staff, they should really start looking at outsourcing their it or internally managing and beginning to develop processes. What do you usually recommend First, the Salesforce tool if you notice benefits for smaller organizations, in the same way that it benefits large organizations are
Emily Pineda 19:49
and I think that it's in my experience is definitely really powerful. For That 10 or less number because again, the licenses are free.
And it's just it's
easier to design get started with that small group cuz because it is easier to design and make sure that it's meeting everybody's needs. Um it's also but I can't imagine working at a larger nonprofit without a tool like Salesforce. So I think it's powerful for for both large and small. But if you're thinking about waiting, because you're still too small, I'd say like get started now. Because it's a game changer. And usually your smaller organizations, your people have to do so much more. I shouldn't say more, but there's a lot of different hats. They have to wear exactly their life easier. This is this is a great tool for it.
Jake Van Buschbach 20:57
That's good to know. Um, so when You mentioned that you have a maximum of 10 licenses. So like let's say you have an organization with 20 people in it, is it usual in your experience the last three places you've been for every staff member to have a Salesforce license? Or is it something where you have a department leader? They get one, then maybe their right hand gets one? How do usually distribute the licenses? And does everyone in the organization need to have a license?
Emily Pineda 21:23
Great. So I'm sorry, I mentioned 10 for the free license, but you can have as many as you'd like. So if they're in the database, sorry, the CRM daily, we usually give them a user license. However, there's also lower cost licenses that give limited access. And so for people who aren't in our system and only need to see certain things we'll give them that those licenses. So like community or partner licenses
And
people that are higher up, and then only need to really see the reports that come out of the system, we just send them the report like have the reports scheduled to them. Yeah. So, um, I would say only if you're in the CRM on a regular basis, we, we provide licenses
Unknown Speaker 22:26
gotcha. And go sir.
Emily Pineda 22:30
I'm
often to when we when like people go on mat leave or away for a while, sometimes we'll switch licenses from one person due to another to just be a bit more flexible.
Jake Van Buschbach 22:43
Gotcha. When you're doing that, do they lose data? Does the data just get put on hold? Is it really easy to switch back and forth between different users?
Emily Pineda 22:53
And it's quite easy to switch back and forth. Um Yeah, the It, it's just the license. So the user will still have all the information associated with it. And once you associate the license with them, they'll be able to access everything at the permissions that were set for them. Yeah. Yeah,
Jake Van Buschbach 23:18
gotcha. So when you guys implemented the technology at the other firm that you're working at the other Association, what were some of the main benefits that you guys noticed? Obviously, the reduction in time the reduction in labor? Did you guys end up doubling in size? What kind of direct benefits to employees implementing this technology give to your clients into your personal organizations?
Emily Pineda 23:43
Yeah, the biggest one was that we collected I don't remember the exact numbers now but at least 10 times more of the data that we needed well, and that was something we were really struggling with before and and that's And then and we were able to adopt it was it was a hiring program. So we were able to adopt it. And actually a really specialized software for our program that we wouldn't have had access to an outside of Salesforce because there's, in addition to Salesforce being able to integrate with a lot of different programs, and there's also companies dedicated to building software that are is on top of the Salesforce platform. Gotcha. Um, so this was a really unique tool that we wouldn't have had access to otherwise. So I think I'm just opening up the doors to what possible was was huge for us as well.
Jake Van Buschbach 24:47
Do you have some favorite add ons and integrations that you work with all the time like in when you started at this, other companies started integrating and we're like we need to have XYZ integrations.
Emily Pineda 24:59
So That was a very specific pilot. So I'm not from that company, but I would say make way we use workato, which is helps us integrate a lot of a lot of different programs like NetSuite and box.
So that was helpful and
and we use clicking pledge for our donation pages, which is big and reducing data entry. But now with sales forces, Summer 20 release, Salesforce has their own giving pages and payment processors. So I'd encourage people to look at that. I haven't thoroughly looked at it but Salesforce is really good at maintaining their programs and and what's Great about going with this. I don't work for Salesforce. But
Jake Van Buschbach 26:03
yeah, I did.
Emily Pineda 26:05
Disclaimer, um, but
in my experience, it's great going with the Salesforce option because there's so much of a community around Salesforce that the forms if I have so much valuable insights, so there's a specific nonprofit community forum. And so they share information on strategies on using it. And it's just it if there's a support ticket, but you've logged for for one of your integrations, and the Salesforce community is usually really good at helping you resolve it faster than the support. Gotcha. So yeah,
Jake Van Buschbach 26:53
so if I was a nonprofit, for example, and I want to get started with Salesforce, I can just hop online and say, Hey, Like with your buddies, wine, hey, we work with kids or we are helping out people with maybe the burn fund, for example, they're going to be able to find an online community full of people like themselves that are going to be able to give them tips and give them advice.
Emily Pineda 27:17
Yeah, yeah. And we've found that really powerful. Yeah, in addition to, you know, the mentor I had before and working with consultants, it's just, it's nice that they've such a supportive ecosystem
Jake Van Buschbach 27:33
around that sounds really good. So when you're working with Salesforce, you mentioned that it takes donations now as a payment processing stuff. It does campaigns, it does follow ups. it automates your workflows. What is like a campaign or I don't even know what the word would be. But what does a configuration look like? Is it something where you're able to just set up a campaign and it's going to run Facebook ads for you and then anyone who clicks on the campaign? Is it a full sales funnel? Or is it even more than that?
Emily Pineda 28:03
So
the basic functionality allows you to organize what your campaign will include and then is able to funnel any incoming donations and donors to that campaign so you can do your follow up to them
and send emails out from there.
And then there's a whole Marketing Cloud on Salesforce that has a bit more of the
like the click rates and
different analytics that you might use for your campaign. Yeah. Yeah, we we use predictive response right now for our marketing, which is a different Salesforce. Add on And so when we send an email out, we can see who opened it and who we need to send out to again and and what donations have come in to that campaign.
Jake Van Buschbach 29:13
And you mentioned that it helps you collect 10 times as much data as you needed. So what kind of data does it collect?
Emily Pineda 29:20
So that's really personal, customizable. So you can we had it set up to donate, sorry to collect and retention data on our hires because we had a hiring program, but you can really customize the fields and you can send out surveys. And so what we did is we sent out surveys with our custom fields that we needed to collect and had it continue to follow up if no one responded. And then after Three tries, if they didn't respond, that's when our person would get looped in to be the human contact. Okay, um, to chase after it, but it's really customizable. You could pretty much collect anything you'd like.
Jake Van Buschbach 30:15
Yeah, very cool. Yeah. So are you guys facing any challenges because of the the whole zombie apocalypse Coronavirus thing that's going on? or? Yeah. So what what kind of issues are coming up? And what what have you guys done to kind of surmount those challenges?
Emily Pineda 30:35
Um, yeah. So our projects and programs are having new challenges, but we're really trying to focus on the opportunities that are here as well. So like, for example, one of our projects that together project has moved a lot of their supports online and made it More make their programs more accessible for people remotely. So we're trying to see see, like, how can this improve our programs, and then also trying to establish new relationships with funders, because while we're part of this give five movement, which a lot of founders have private foundations, they only need to give 3.5% of their endowed funds each year. So because of the hard economic times we're having now, we're encouraging other foundations to give at least 5% this year to help. So there's a lot of foundations that signed up for this give five pledge. So we're really just trying to kind of work with them, work with these organizations that are that Want to support extra at these times during these times, and start building new relationships and the lead object implementation, which I talked about earlier, that our development team did last last, in the last couple of months, it's really helped us understand who these new leads in, or foundations and partners, they're not going to like that I said leads but partners are, and to make sure that we understand who they are what they care about, and can communicate the importance of what we do in a way that they'll appreciate. So that's what we're trying to do. Salesforce also has been really responsive during this crisis, and they have been launching new tools. I haven't had a chance to explore them much but who They're just so supportive. I gotta say, they launched this new contact tracing tool, as well as this workforce command center, which helps organization track organizations to track who's been in the office at the same time so that if someone does get COVID, they can. Yes, see, who needs to be notified and what the next step should be pretty cool. Yeah. And then I know they're coming soon, out soon with improved volunteer and grant management features because they realized the need for, like emergency response. So they're trying to support their nonprofits act. Quick, more, more quickly. Normally, gotcha.
Jake Van Buschbach 33:52
So you mentioned that Salesforce is really really supportive, which is good. So even though they are again, like the number one CRM in the world Again, I didn't know they were doing the one for one thing where they're donating this much and they're trying to incentivize other people to do the same. So you really do get like a small business feel from them even though they are this an international corporation.
Emily Pineda 34:14
Yeah, um,
I in I think that's been in their philosophy since they they started that 111 model, I think they might have even Marc Benioff might have even be the one who came up with that model and influenced a lot of other organizations to do that. But yeah, in addition to the tools they build, they also they also like, come out with advice around that contact tracing stuff and how to get back back to work. And they they do do reports each year to try to understand the voice of their customers and they and they publish that. So if you are looking into how nonprofits benefit On a wider scale, you can look into their they're not nonprofit trends reports I can send you the link after but it's always interesting to see like how other organizations are doing things. And I just feel like they make a real effort to understand and be there. So some people call it a call, and I sound like I'm part of it. But, um, no, I just, it means a lot when you can see firsthand how much extra FaceTime the people in your benefit from your programs get because of the things that were automated. Oh,
Jake Van Buschbach 35:42
that makes sense. Yeah, that sounds like a really good call. Um, so when you guys are working with this stuff, you mentioned there's a ton of examples of other people online that are using this stuff and there's always online communities and there's a couple of calls they're starting to develop. So what are some Some examples of some people that you're following, or some other companies that you've seen that have done a really good job of integrating Salesforce. Do you have any recommendations for people to check out they can kind of see what a great integration looks like and what does that look like to you when someone's really done a good job of implementing Salesforce?
Emily Pineda 36:22
It's hard because I don't see the back end of other people's Salesforce so it's hard for me to recommend anyone um, the main things I follow are all the new stuff that come out on trailhead, which is there, like training, how to resource section. I have heard good things at conferences of Big Brothers Big Sisters in the US, and that, I believe, if my memory serves, correct, they were able to use like Einstein analytics, which is a Salesforce is trying to expand the use of AI and simplify it to match their big and little, their bigs and littles and made that whole process really efficient. I think a good setup looks the way a good setup looks as if your users have adopted it and are frequently logging in, you can track that all in Salesforce as well. And I found a big piece of ensuring that is just starting with talking to the users and understanding what their pain points are and really introduced introducing it and building it around those. Those pain points.
Jake Van Buschbach 37:48
Gotcha. So we do a really similar sort of thing when when we're getting started with clients. A lot of the things we've been doing especially during COVID I think it's the best time to be implementing tools like Because everyone's slowed down, people are working from home, they're used to things being kind of changed up and shaken up a little bit. We've we've moved over a couple of big clients onto some new platforms. Now during all this stuff. And the number one thing that we recommend people do is they outline all of their users. I have another video on this, about the organizational structure of your business, but you have to lay out the users, the resources, the processes, and the workflows that are required to accomplish whatever your core mission is. And if you're able to lay all of those out, and it does take time to get that stuff laid out, like it's not something where you're like, Oh, I remember this obscure calendar that we use once a year, but you will be able to tell everybody, hey, just be conscious of what you're working on. add it to this spreadsheet based on your department for the next month. And when you lay all that information out, you can then start to use a tool like Salesforce or G Suite or Microsoft 365 for nonprofits, and really steps a step to get it get a start on the right foot with this. So do you have any tips Are any recommendations for people that do want to take the first step into using Salesforce and what would you recommend those people do while they're getting started?
Emily Pineda 39:10
Yeah, um, I think what you recommended sounds great like being conscious of your day to day processes and noting down like what, what really feels almost unnecessary or repetitive or that easy to make errors on. Yeah, those are really big pieces that that help adoption for sure. And I would say that also make note of the pieces of your existing systems that you're using that you like that you must have can't get rid of like make sure those are noted as well.
And
sales versa, Salesforce is so flexible, I would encourage either working with some One are playing around with a sandbox version of Salesforce. And just getting a basic idea of how things connect and flow together, and I think that in combination with that list you've been making, you'll have a good starting point for conversations with your consultant, or for initial steps in your belt.
Jake Van Buschbach 40:25
Gotcha. What is the sandbox? So you keep talking about and how do people access them.
Emily Pineda 40:30
So the sandbox is, it's, it's, it's just a version of Salesforce, but you don't need you can't. You can't use it for business, but you can build it out in such a way that it will be very similar to your to your business instance.
And so
you can go online, I think You can get it from trailhead, I have to send you a link of how to set up a sandbox later. But you, you can allow consultants into your sandbox or developers to build something out in a way that you think, but also that you think would work for you. But also, I mentioned that, or I meant to mention
that Salesforce has a lot of built in features.
And they have a nonprofit success pack. So that's stuff that's already built with an understanding of nonprofits in mind. So they'll have functionality for recurring donations for tracking your contacts and accounts. And so just like building engagement plans, so I think it's a good idea to take a look at what those are like in sandbox, the non business environment of your sales of Salesforce
And
I will create a couple of records. And you can you can play around with the reporting, but just get an idea of what we're what we're talking about here.
Jake Van Buschbach 42:13
That's great. So yeah, I'll get that link from you, for sure. And I'll throw that down in the description. Because, again, it sounds like if people want to get started with this tool, and start to get advantage, take advantage of all these different features and reduce their workflows and start to automate away up to 20 25% of their day to day, the drudgery, the wading through concrete kind of work. It's great. If you have a resource for that, we'll definitely put that out in the description below. And if it has a starter kit, where it kind of gives people all of these resources that they need and kind of gives them a demo of this is what's most popular right now. And all this other kind of stuff that sounds like a fantastic resource. So we'll definitely throw that down below. And, again, if people have any questions about this stuff, I'm sure they can reach out to their communities or reach out to someone like yourself and get a lot more detailed answers because I know that the general stuff is very difficult to pin down because Salesforce like you just said, if you have a tool that has benefits that you like, right now, just note them down because Salesforce can do it. You know what I mean? In my experience, there's almost no question. I haven't
Emily Pineda 43:18
come across anything you can do. Yeah, but I'm sure it exists somewhere. But, man, they've they've got a big ecosystem.
Jake Van Buschbach 43:27
Yeah. So I think it'd be great if we can start to link to resources like that and kind of help people get started on the on the right foot there. So that's awesome. Um, what are some common strategies that you recommend people kind of implement while they're using this stuff again, the day to day taking notes of what you're doing? That's really good. When you were moving over the previous sociation was there anything specifically you did that made things like significantly easier to implement this technology or any sort of pitfalls, any mistakes that you made that you want to make sure people are aware of and Doesn't happen to them.
Emily Pineda 44:02
Yeah, and I think when I first started out, I was not aware of all the different packages that were already built for Salesforce. So I would recommend I can also share their the Salesforce App Store looking at what already exists. I did learn a lot by ignoring that. But um, there's, there's, yeah, make sure that you're not building something from scratch that that would be cheaper for you to to purchase. And then also being really mindful of what data you'll be want to be looking at in the future and the format. So I said you can customize collect any type of data. Making sure you understand what format that's coming in. So you can you can have specific field types has been important for us. So you know, with some of our legacy systems, there's
it just it just happens sometimes when,
when you if you do decide to go for a package, sometimes it will include a field that has a matching name to a field you already have in your system. So just make sure you're being mindful of what fields you're pulling in and making it accessible to your users. Because otherwise your data can get really messy and that's important for you to be efficient and effective with your programs and compliant with your your finances and receding. So
I guess in summary, data structure
be thoughtful about your data strategy because it's painful to adjust later, after you've been working with it so much and have processes built around it and Salesforce App Store is your friend. Yeah,
Jake Van Buschbach 46:03
yeah. Sounds about right. So that's that's all like, very, very interesting. So it sounds to me like, it's kind of the opposite of what I usually recommend people do is what they should be doing is going and spending for a 12 hours, just login in the store, looking at these communities online, getting the sandbox set up, and then kind of playing around with all these different settings. I usually recommend people do the configuration of things, we do all of the prep work first, I design and implement the technology, and then they play around with it to get familiar with it. But it sounds to me like it's kind of the opposite here because there's so much to be done. And there's so much available, it's a lot better to just kind of go out, dip your toe in the water, see what's available, see what gets recommended to you based on where you're at. Go talk to some communities, and then just kind of write down a list of everything that's important to us specifically, and try to write down Now what's gonna be important to you over the next year that you can kind of scale up into those things? It does that sound about right to you?
Emily Pineda 47:09
Yeah, but I think you can understand your processes and make those notes first before you do the exploring. Um, but yeah, I wouldn't want to build or adopt anything too soon, because I have seen like, you know, Salesforce is coming out with this release in two months, and it's exactly what you, your organization has built a month ago. So we just waited. It, it could have been a lot easier or included. So I think getting a good idea of the space is important.
Jake Van Buschbach 47:45
Gotcha. Do you have any recommendations for tools that complement Salesforce like anything that's not necessarily an integration, but you mentioned some tools that go on top of it. What did you mean by that? What do you guys use and what do you recommend people look at Is there another resource like this app store that people can find this stuff for? different communities online?
Emily Pineda 48:05
Um, yeah, I think that the App Store is the main place to find them. We use target recruit, specifically for hiring and then that that link just with, like, indeed in a bunch of different job site boards, but that was it did a bunch of stuff like resume scanning for us and
and that was built within Salesforce.
But I don't think that's a common need for for nonprofit.
Jake Van Buschbach 48:38
Um, it's still very cool that you can do that though. Like I might even need to get something like that going on. And I know a lot of these places when they're doing volunteers, or they're having big events, like stuff like that would be invaluable for them. So that that's really good to know that you can even do resume scanning with this stuff. So it's not only an external, I was under the impression it was an external fundraising tool, and you would use it to keep an eye on like, this is Bob, he's purchasing your T shirt from Tennessee and this is Sally she's uh, she went to your event in Vancouver and she brought three people with her and this was their age and that kind of stuff. But like knowing that you can automate the majority of the communications that you're doing and have a check in with people three times and then alert someone on your team that they need to reach out and getting all these different analytics internally. And now the COVID awareness and all this other stuff. This is I'm being sold on this like this is something I started making sure that all of our
Emily Pineda 49:35
welcomes give my calls.
Jake Van Buschbach 49:36
Yeah, exactly. But it's a free tool, again, like you said, and most of the nonprofit's that we work with that I'm thinking of right now. Their leadership team is much smaller than 10. You know what I mean? They might have 60 or 60 volunteers or they have 89 people working there and but the core team or like the core lead of people is usually anywhere from five to 15 People, those are the people that need this stuff because they're the ones that are overworked. They're the ones that are under equipped. And they really need stuff like this. And again, being able to just say, like, allocate two hours a week to just going on the App Store and looking at this stuff. And, again, most of my clients already have these resources and all of these different processes laid out. So it'd be really easy for us to just kind of dip our toe into that I can just kind of set a meeting a month though, and just say, okay, you're going to spend two hours a week looking at these Salesforce options. I'm going to touch base with you in a month. And then we're gonna design and implement a Salesforce solution for you guys. It sounds really, really easy.
Emily Pineda 50:43
Have you Yeah, it's about finding the right pieces that cut that go together for your specific use. Yeah, and then customizing it here and there where where it needs to be. I just want to be clear, though, then the whole thing's not free, basic functionalities. Free. And then like when you go to the App Store, there's some free items. And you'll have to check like when's the last time? It's been updated and gone through some checks. But then, and Salesforce itself has add on features, but there's still is quite robust functionality. Yeah. free license.
Jake Van Buschbach 51:21
Yeah, absolutely. And then again, the 10 free licenses is great. And then 75% off every license you purchase beyond that is also fantastic. And, again, there's no such thing as a free lunch. So I would expect that these developers and Salesforce itself would need to sustain itself somehow. So it makes sense that the add ons would need to be purchased. But like you said, if you're purchasing an add on, it's because again, you're going to be reducing either capital expenditures or operational expenditures because of that. And in my experience, when we automate just using tools like Microsoft 365, or G Suite, which are incredibly limited compared to Salesforce, we've managed to reduce a private company. I'm thinking of One of their team members, specifically, two out of his five days of work, we were able to honor for him. And that doesn't mean he's out of a job. That doesn't mean he got his hours cut, it meant that he did not need to send quality control check in emails, he didn't need to reach out to people about the same things over and over again. And he was actually given a raise and promoted because of this because they were now able to fully allow him to access his potential, instead of having being bogged down by these repetitive maintenance tasks he was doing every week. So it sounds like again, even Salesforce, just regular Salesforce should have been something that was being considered and implemented there. I know that I like to keep things very, very flat. If possible. I want to make sure that we're working with one solution that implements with many other solutions. But I don't like people having to log into five different windows and having to learn six different programs. Is Salesforce, capable of being just the whole For everything in your experience like email and marketing campaigns and again payroll like basically everything.
Emily Pineda 53:09
I think for payroll, you'd have to find the right integration or connection but they do have we're using a zero right now for single sign on but Salesforce recently, or I found out about it recently and has a single sign on functionality so it can be your central hub.
Jake Van Buschbach 53:29
That's so cool. That's awesome. Um, what else do I have to ask you here? Um, do you have any market leaders do your following right now you've mentioned what are some of the communities again that you recommend people check out?
Emily Pineda 53:42
Yeah, power of us. hub, and then the generals trail parade Trail Blazers, community forum, and trailhead? You know, I'm not following Salesforce influencers right now. I'll be honest, right. Am I Mostly just meet people at conferences and learn what they're doing. Know,
Jake Van Buschbach 54:05
what are some of the conferences they usually go to?
Emily Pineda 54:09
While there's dreamforce that happens each year, and that's usually hosted in San Francisco, and we'll see what happens this year. Yeah. Um, and then traction on demand hosts and very Salesforce specific conference as well.
Those are the big ones.
Jake Van Buschbach 54:33
Awesome. Yeah, it sounds again, like most people, go online, check out these communities and they're going to be overwhelmed with information and they can just kind of pick their niche and just dive in. Mm hmm. That's awesome. Um, do you have anything else that you want to you want to go over or any anything else you want to promote?
Emily Pineda 54:51
Um, no, I just, I am very passionate about helping nonprofits and feel like I've built Some really useful experience over the years. So I'm happy to talk to anyone and perhaps do some, some work on the side of my work at Make way. If people need support, that's awesome. I think, you know, implementing this,
Jake Van Buschbach 55:15
okay, perfect, I'll make sure to put your LinkedIn down below. And then if you want to throw your email in there as well, but we'll make sure to have contact information for you down there so people can reach out to you with any questions that they might have. Because, again, I know it's a little bit nerve racking being in this format. But I spoken with you about this on many occasions, and I've learned a ton of stuff from you. So I know that you're now becoming, you're going into the next phase of your career with this stuff, where I think that you've learned enough and you're kind of joining my, the dark side over here where you're joining the consultancy side of things and you're starting to do the higher level implementations and administration more so than working inside of the system. So yeah, I'm really excited to continue speaking with you about topics like this and learning about how my clients can benefit from this stuff. So, again, thank you very much for coming on today. Yeah, so again, we'll put your LinkedIn down below. Yeah, I hope this video gives everybody a good foundation to start boosting income tracking individual metrics, implementing tools like Salesforce for your nonprofit, and everybody make sure to check out Make way and make sure to give me a shout if you have any questions. We're gonna have her contact information down below in the description. And once again, if you could please leave a like on this video. It does really help us out. And if you want to see more videos like this, then please subscribe. Last week's webinar that I put on showed nonprofits how to get $120,000 a year in free advertising from Google. So make sure to check out those videos if you're a nonprofit and interested in that kind of stuff. And if you have a suggestion for a future video, please leave a comment below if you have somebody you would like to see on the show. Email us at Tech Tips at umbrella IT services dot Yay. And I hope you have a great day and we'll see you soon. Bye. Thanks so much. No worries. Thanks for coming on.