Nonprofit organizations have a lot of information and easy access to it can make for stronger communications and better business decisions. Whether it's your supporters' contact information, donor giving records, a history of the services your clients have used, or the name of that caterer you love from last year's gala—your important information needs to be stored in an organized, reliable, and accessible system.

Our database consultants have years of experience helping nonprofit organizations make the best use of a variety of database systems, with a deep knowledge of Constituent Relationship Management (CRM). You can keep track of everyone who has a relationship with your organization, bring them closer, and strengthen their bond with your organization and its mission. That can mean, among other things, increasing the frequency that an individual volunteers, raising more money from a local foundation, or attracting super-savvy and highly networked community members to join your board. This can be done through effectively managing contact information, tracking the frequency and methods of communication, and finding new ways to connect with your constituents in a meaningful way.

We’ll help you create a system that will work for your organization's specific data management needs.

Our database consulting team works with applications that your entire staff will be able to learn and use to make their work simpler and more efficient. We’ll help you evaluate your data tracking needs and then plan, design, and build a system that will work for your organization. And, most importantly, we'll provide training and coaching on the new system to help your staff hit the ground running and make the most out of your investment in data management.

Our work is based on Salesforce and its Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) and there are two ways we provide help.

Salesforce Maintenance Support

Maintenance includes the basic tasks to keep a database running well. A plan for regular maintenance and support will be established by mutual agreement. Support includes a monthly check-in with a 501 Commons Database Consultant.

Examples of work considered maintenance:

• Duplicate record management
• Creation and maintenance of reports, list views
• Custom fields, redoing page layouts, and object management (record types)
• Basic process automations

Salesforce Advanced Support

More complex Salesforce work is available in a maintenance contract. The rate is discounted from the current rate for projects.

Examples of work considered advanced:

• Third-party applications and integration support (FormAssembly, Conga Composer, MailChimp, etc.)
• Implementing Lightning for Outlook/Gmail, or Lightning Sync
• Significant changes to the data model and schema (i.e., custom objects or other features)
• Advanced Automations or Experience Cloud development

Salesforce Project

A Project is defined as having a specific goal, defined timeframe, and specific deliverable(s). These elements are defined in a Scope of Work.  Projects will typically have separate contracts.

Examples of projects requiring a scope of work:

• Upgrading a Salesforce instance
• Implementing significant new integrations and major applications
• Merging Salesforce instances
• Training which has defined learning objectives and a specific time-frame

How to Learn More

Curious about the potential of a new database system? Check out our Technology Knowledge Center for presentations and resources that can help you learn more about CRM systems, data management, and selecting "best fit" database for your organization.

If you're ready to get organized, run more efficiently, and get a better return on your database or CRM investment, contact us online or give us a call at 206-682-6704.