Non Profit Starter Pack Unlocked

It would be easy to mistake Salesforce only as a business – to – business application that enhances the business and in turn the profits of the organizations. I mean, sure, it does that, but is that all to Salesforce? The answer, thankfully, is no. Salesforce has much more to it, one of which is the Non Profit Starter Pack (NPSP).

Nonprofit organizations have a unique set of needs and requirements. NPSP dispenses packages that help run the functioning of a nonprofit and gets them started on the right foot, as they embark on their journey to help the world. In simpler words, NPSP helps you help the world!

 Assuming you are familiar with standard Salesforce objects and their purpose, let me take you through the various objects that make up the NPSP and show how they are related.

HOUSEHOLDS

You are probably aware of the standard Account object in Salesforce, which is associated with contacts and opportunities. In the nonprofit world, this Account objects is termed as a HOUSEHOLD.

Essentially, the family with which the nonprofit organization works with is termed as a household.

Whenever we create a contact, a household automatically gets created for it, provided we leave the account Name field blank. You can also customize household names, merge households, split households, as the need be.

ORGANIZATIONS

Organization too, is equivalent of an account. So, how is it different from a household?

ORGANIZATIONS are not individual entities but are companies, foundations, corporations or other nonprofits who support, sponsor and partner to help households. One can create organization accounts and keep a track of the organizations that they work with.

DONATIONS

Unlike normal business deals, nonprofits do not have deals but have donations that are to be tracked.

Hence the Opportunity standard object in your Salesforce is acknowledged as DONATION in NPSP. Usually, donations come from individuals. There are 5 types of opportunities/donations in NPSP, namely: donation, grant, major gift, matching donation and membership.

AFFILIATIONS

Another object provided in NPSP is affiliation. Affiliations are created in order to connect contact records to organization.

They represent the ongoing or past association between contacts and organizations.

A single organization can be designated as the primary affiliation for multiple contacts. However, a contact can only have one associated primary affiliation record.

RELATIONSHIPS

Just as relationships are important in our personal life, they are important in NPSP too!

The basic significance of relationships is to keep a track of how someone is connected to whom. Relationships can be created between the same household, between different households and between contacts and organizations.

Before we sign out for the day, let’s see how the objects within your Salesforce map to objects within the NPSP

Mapping of CRM Object Model to Object Model in NPSP

What’s best about NPSP that it consists of a number of packages, each having their own functionality and usage and you have the option to choose the packages you need and leave the rest. These packages enable Nonprofits to get a quick start, use other Salesforce functionality without worrying about the complexities within and get a real visualization of how all entities are linked within. And if you are a nonprofit and still not sold on NPSP, Salesforce offers ten free licenses to get you up and running!  So what are you waiting for?

For additional information, you may also refer to this post.



Written by Neha Sonawane,  Salesforce Developer at Eternus Solutions