Nonprofit Success
Nonprofit Success
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Salesforce.com Foundation in Israel Day 1
Aug 3, 2008
Good Morning from Netanya,I'm with a group of Salesforce.com and Salesforce,com Foundation employees and will be live blogging today from our trip to Israel. It's a Sunday, but that is a work day here and we are located at the Cisco offices just outside of Tel Aviv. Joining this trip is a very international team, Isabel Kelly the EMEA Director of the Salesforce Foundation from London, Sara Broph
y, Salesforce Foundation Program Manager, based in Dublin, Monty Hoeft, Director of Partner Success from London, Elay Cohen, VP of Product Development, from San Francisco, Max Swedlow, Account Executive for Emerging Markets, and lastly myself Chris Atwood, Regional Account Executive for Nonprofits and Education based in London. The event today and tomorrow are being graciously hosted by Cisco and also in partnership with the Pratt FoundationAfter all of that we have about 20 people here this morning that are current Salesforce.com and are receiving training based on feedback we received from survey data. It will be interesting as the day proceeds to ensure that we are meeting their needs and ensuring they get what they need from the training we are providing.
Chris Atwood
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Salesforce to Salesforce - 2 Included
Jul 1, 2008Good day!
In case anyone isn't reading the PRM blog I wanted to bring it to your attention that in the latest release that there are two free licenses to connect your instance of Salesforce.com with another.
http://blogs.salesforce.com/prm/2008/06/2-free-salesfor.html
It has fascinating application potential around passing donor data between sister organizations, even sharing volunteers between local nonprofits in a particular area. I'm not aware today of other nonprofits using this technology, so if you are please let me know so we can highlight your organization and others can learn from your use cases.
Chris Atwood
Regional Account Executive EMEA
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Vertical Response Program for Nonprofits
Apr 24, 2008So this is pretty significant news for nonprofits, Vertical Response is now allowing nonprofits to get 10,000 free emails per month. Details here:
http://blog.verticalresponse.com/verticalresponse_blog/2008/04/non-profits-ema.html
and if you aren't already using Vertical Response, they have a nice integratin with Salesforce available here:
http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/detail_overview.jsp?id=a0330000000GI9FAAW
VERY Exciting news for the over 3,000 nonprofits we have using Salesforce.com
Chris
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Thoughts on Tour De Force
Apr 24, 2008For the past two weeks I've been on the road and attending Salesforce Events in Miami, Boston and my home city of New York. We are really generating momentum in the nonprofit space around using Platform as a Service. My metric for measuring this is the sheer number of larger nonprofits that are starting to attend our events not judging the effectiveness of our product, but strategically planning in their head what they want to build next on our platform. I had the opportunity to host a lunch with a variety of customers and prospects in our Higher Education market, talking about some of our success in the space because Salesforce when compared to existing higher ed systems that just can't be configured for integration and expanded application development, to not say anything about how user unfriendly they are. It's very exciting to sit with a group of people, from well known schools that are easily recognizable, excited about the potential of development on our platform.
After lunch, I talked to another large nonprofit customer who said to me, "what's amazing is we actually have metrics", they'd recently taken some tracking data for sales and marketing that had been on a spreadsheet and built it out in Salesforce. Cloud computing is a concept that any organization, nonprofit or for profit, need to get their heads around to see the potential benefits. This understanding of what is possible is why we are starting to see large nonprofit organizations make the switch of legacy databases to Salesforce and see real success.
In the next two weeks we will be taking the Tour de Force event to London as part of Dreamforce Europe. If you are reading this and you know of a charity that might like to attend, please drop me a note personally catwood@salesforce.com we have some signficantly discounted rates to attend available.
Chris Atwood
Account Manager, America's East and EMEA Nonprofits and Higher Education
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Salesforce.com and Google Apps
Apr 16, 2008Why Salesforce.com and Google Apps will Change the Game for Nonprofits
Nonprofit organizations should not need to deal with the plumbing of technology. They should be able to move ALL of their resources on to the Internet (into the cloud) and concentrate their technical and creative talents on making the world a better place. To date, this has been nothing more than a nice idea. However, that all changed yesterday. There are a lot of resources out there about exactly what is available and exactly what it will and will not do.
A great salesforce.com resource is here: www.salesforce.com/googleapps.
Here's a page from Google: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/posted-by-scott-mcmullan-google-apps.html
Google CEO Eric Schmidt
First point to be made here is that, he came. The features that are now available represent a tremendously useful first step, a great mash-up. The fact that Eric Schmidt and Marc Benioff presented this together means that this is an alliance between two companies with supporting visions. A computing platform is being built and both of these companies are dedicated to the success of the nonprofit sector. For evidence of this: http://www.salesforcefoundation.org/product and http://www.google.com/nonprofits.
Joseph Mouzon - Network for Good
Next point to be made is the critical role of the social sector in this announcement and the ongoing development and adoption of this cloud computing platform. In the video above Joseph Mouzon of Network for Good does a great job of describing the value proposition of this new integration. And, salesforce.com has chosen this video as an effective way to get out the news to it's entire community of users.
Blogs:
Nonprofit blogger, Judi Sohn in her blog http://www.momathome.com, has two excellent posts on this new integration. It is worth mentioning that there is nothing uniquely "nonprofit" about her post. She writes about what she sees as that is immediately valuable and where she sees room to grow. A wonderful thing to notice about her posts are the comments.
In this post
http://www.momathome.com/2008/04/google_apps_and_salesforce_-_finally_a_first_look/
A salesforce.com employee comments to fill in some information on the features of gmail to salesforce.com.
And in this post
http://www.momathome.com/2008/04/more_on_the_salesforcegoogle_calendar_sync_bug/
about an issue that she found in the Appirio calendar sync, you will notice that Appirio commented at 8:44pm that they would look in to the problem and at 3:06am reposted that it was fixed.
The nonprofit sector is nobody's step-child! We are driving innovation. We are at the forefront. Can I get a witness!?
Another great blog from NTEN is here:
http://nten.org/blog/2008/04/14/salesforce-com-google-improved-productivityAnd Finally...
The new Google App Engine is LOUSING with potential. Like I mentioned earlier, what we have seen, from a feature perspective, is a great mash-up. After watching the video above, sit back in a comfy chair, turn on some very loud music (headphones or surround sound preferred) and think about what you could accomplish by mashing up your organization's Salesforce.com data with custom, universally available web-apps built on the Google architecture. APEX + Google App Engine, mmmmmmmm. Now open you eyes. Now go build it.
"Part of the issue here is that we never build the app that you want. We build an app that you may want... Why not build them on a common inexpensive infrastructure that has all the information on it anyway." - Eric Schmidt, CEO Google
What we are seeing are two companies betting the bank on the success of their customers. If, and only if, we are successful, then they are successful. Intuitively, this makes perfect sense, yet it is strangely rare. We have the keys to the castle and we were invited in through the front door.
Steve Wright
Director of Innovation
Salesforce.com Foundation -
Salesforce for Nonprofits in Buenos Aires
Mar 14, 2008
The Salesforce Foundation has a global mission, ensuring nonprofit success around the world and making nonprofits aware of our product donation program is one of our top focuses. Salesforce is available in fifteen languages including Spanish. I used to live in Argentina and find myself back in the country a couple of times a year and have spent quite a bit of time working with Idealist in their Buenos Aires office. Idealist is a great organization for nonprofits and also a very successful user of Salesforce.com. Their website is integrated with Salesforce.com and fully integrated into every aspect of their operation.With my last visit to Argentina we decided to host an event for nonprofits in Buenos Aires and "hacer un poco de ruido" or make a little bit of noise. We hosted the event at the Circulo Italiano and had about 50 people there from 30 different organizations. We had three speakers, I first talked
about the license donation program and gave a company overview, the next speaker was Jans Larssen from HelpArgentina. HelpArgentina uses our product for contact/account/donation tracking, and also received a grant from the Salesforce.com Foundation and continues to work to improve the integration of their website with Salesforce.com. The third and final speaker was Matias Laurenz from Idealist. Matias did a great job discussing how to use Salesforce successfully and some of the ways that Idealist is using it in their day to day operations. The speakers were followed by a Q and A session. We were lucky to also be joined by ETIS and Endeavor, both Salesforce.com customers. It was a very exciting event and we received a lot of positive feedback afterward on the program. Additional pictures are located here : http://picasaweb.google.com/mlaurenz/SFEventChris Atwood
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Saleforce.com Foundation - Only Just Begun
Feb 19, 2008The Salesforce.com Foundation just put on an event in NY that I am very proud of. (...of which I am very proud.)
I started at Salesforce.com Foundation in September of 2000. In that year we donated our first instance of salesforce.com to a nonprofit organization, Business Today. It wasn't until 2004 that we hit triple digits. As of today, we have donated licenses to over 3,000 nonprofits in 56+ countries. It is reasonable to say that our work has increased the efficacy of the global social sector. (Maybe a very small amount but it is a reasonable thing to say.)
What was most exciting about this event is that it represented our coming of age. 250 people came to a hotel in NY on a very sloppy, snowy, rainy day, to spend the day with us. We were able to provide a keynote address from Holy Ross, E.D. of NTEN. There was a lunch conversation on social entrepreneurship with the directors of Endeavor, Kiva, The Rockefeller Foundation and Donors Choose. We had a closing session with Monica Sharma, MD, UN Director of Leadership and Capacity Building. The fact that we can now attract influential people like this is a great thing. It is great because it creates pull.
What we are doing is not Corporate Social Responsibility (except in the way that a square is always a rectangle regardless of the perfect symmetry that the square is trying to achieve.)
To me, the Salesforce.com Foundation is a social enterprise, an independent NGO working to increase the efficacy of the global social sector. I am grateful for the philanthropic vision of our founder, Marc Benioff. I am grateful for the ongoing dedication and largess of every salesforce.com employee. And it is this perfect storm of resources and dedication, that has made it possible to begin.
It is these contributions of vision, capital, product, time, and extensive, heartfelt, passionate, over and above contributions of operational support (like those which created our recent event); it is these contributions that have made us real and tangible.
What has made us effective, what has given us impact, is the participation of the global NGO community. That they chose to trust us, that they let us in the tent, that they let us deep in to their organizations, continues to amaze me. I am in awe of the ability of these extraordinary people. And, I am immensely proud to be one of them.
I guess this is the point of this post. I believe that we just started.
On Feb 13th, 2008, after a lengthy and thorough proof of concept, the Salesforce.com Foundation started an initiative to dramatically increase the efficacy of the global social sector.
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Data Backup
Dec 17, 2007Happy Holidays from all of us here at Salesforce.com and the Salesforce.com Foundation,
My post today isn't holiday oriented though. I just want to remind everyone that Salesforce.com offers a FREE weekly backup service (included for all Enteprise and Unlimited Edition accounts, nonprofits have Enterprise) for your data. One of my Customers first did a data upload and accidently wiped out all the first names of all their contacts. That prompted this blog entry, because had they backed up their data recently it would have been a much less painless process for them to restore the data. It's also a good idea to do this regularly as part of your own CRM Change Control procedures.
To request a data export, follow the steps listed below.
1. Click on:
Setup | Administration Setup | Data Management | Data Export.
2. Select the "Include attachments" check box (if desired).
3. Select any data that you would like to include by checking the box next to the name of the object. Selecting the "Include all data" box will include data from all tables.
4. Click the "Data Export" button.
A confirmation email will be sent when the export has completed, with a link to the export files, as mentioned above.If your holiday plans include any major data updates, give yourself the gift of backing up first.
Chris Atwood
Nonprofit Account Manager
Salesforce.com
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ISRAEL: Foundation yearly gathering with Foundation Partner Blat-Lapidot Consulting 22 November*
Nov 29, 2007Blat-Lapidot hosted a non-profit conference in their offices in Israel for foundation customers in Israel. In the conference included explanations about why and how non-profit organizations should use the system, a lecture our about Salesforce.com`s basic functions and day-to-day use, with an emphasis on the substantial difference between non-profits and business oriented companies. In conclusion, Blat-Lapidot hosted a session in which their implementation team spent time with the attendees and helped them with any specific questions and issues.
Candy Shinaar, Director of Resource Development at ERAN: "I have to say how very happy we were to attend the seminar. We were very impressed with your company. The tuition was extremely helpful, and the personal attention we received was exceptional!"
If you are a nonprofit organisation in Israel and wish to get in touch with Blat Lapidot please visit http://www.salesforcefoundation.org/Blat-Lapidot for more information.
*Written and posted on behalf of Omer Cygler, Blat Lapidot, omer@blat-lapidot.co.il.
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UK: Salesforce.com Foundation and Partners at the Plaza IT Charity Conference - London 07 November
Nov 28, 2007Getting to work in the Salesforce.com Foundation on the Product Donation program is a pretty exciting job, we get to bridge two communities, the IT sector, plus the nonprofit sector, two sectors I love to be involved with. On Wednesday 07 November we had the pleasure of presenting and exhibiting at the Plaza Publishing IT Charity Conference in the Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre London and meet with a broad spectrum representative of both industries. Being based in Dublin, Ireland, a little trip to the UK is always nice too.
Alongside the Salesforce.comFoundation were some of our key partners - implementation partners Frank Seo, CEO of Sofia Works, Ben Belassie, CEO of Generate Enterprise, David Woodhead, Director at Astadia Consulting UK, and Tony Russell, CEO of Intelligent Payment Solutions, (who offer a direct debit payment service to nonprofits - perfect for working on direct debit payments within the salesforce application). We were armed also with Dr Steve Garnett, Chairman for salesforce.com EMEA, who opened a salesforce.com track titled “ Salesforce.com– The On-Demand Nonprofit”. James Penfold, Sales Engineer with salesforce.com was also attending to provide expert advice.
The aim of our attendance as exhibitors was to share a broad spectrum of our product donation, which goes a lot further than just license donation. While we donate 10 Enterprise-class edition licenses to eligible nonprofits and can sell additional licenses at a massively reduced cost, our donation is greatly enhanced by the participation of Partners in our Donation Program.
Our Foundation Partners offer implementations and consultancy to nonprofits at heavily discounted rates, while still offering a professional and competitive service. This gives our nonprofit user community the power to drive their application to a powerful level and get the maximum return from their hard-earned contacts. To put it simply, using the application allows nonprofits to manage their data effectively and allows the nonprofit organisation to focus on what it does best – achieving their social mission without the headache of IT servers, complex data administration and inflexible legacy systems.
The event was attended by medium to large sized UK charities as well as the very small nonprofit organisations, who typically have just as complex business processes as larger organisations. We were delighted to find many nonprofits interested in availing of our donation program – many of whom were driven to our stand following the enthusiastic speech delivered by John May, MD from UK Career Academy who opened his presentation declaring, “I’m not from salesforce.com and I can tell you – I love this product!”
Key enquires into the use of salesforce.com for nonprofits revolved around integrating with payment solutions, plus web interfacing, beyond the standard web-to-lead functionality - a common theme amongst people who dropped by our stand. And yes, our application can and does do all those things! If you are interested in more comprehensive details of our Product Donation Program and/or wish to apply, please visit the Salesforce.com Foundation site - www.salesforcefoundation.org. If you are a nonprofit organisation based in Europe, Middle East or Africa feel free to contact me, Sara Brophy, at: sbrophy@salesforce.com.
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