Why the people are the most important factor in nonprofit digital transformation

People. They have so much knowledge, so many ideas to offer, so much passion. They make the nonprofit sector move and turn. 

Volunteers. Trustees. Staff members. Project teams. Fundraisers. Programme leaders. They all play their part in making the nonprofit sector progress and change the world, and this is the reason why they are always the focal point of our work enabling digital transformation for nonprofit organizations.

We love taking people through a digital transformation and seeing them come out of the other side raving about working with us.  Not just that – how much they love their new Salesforce^® system, how amazing the dashboards are, how easy reports are to pull, or how much more impact is being driven thanks to the amazing automation taking place every day, saving them huge amounts of time, resources and effort. 

In this article, I’ll be exploring all the ways in which people are at the absolute core of nonprofit digital transformation. But first, let’s talk about pizza!

Mmm… pizza!

Stay with me here – I’m not just talking about pizza because it’s amazing (OK, maybe I am a little). But here’s something I was asked recently at Salesforce World Tour London:

“If a digital transformation project was a pizza, and you cut it into a slice to represent the people and a slice to represent the technology, what would it look like?” 

Great question, right? I decided to make an illustration to bring my answer to life – and because I know you love pizza…

“Why do your people take the majority of the pizza?”, I hear you ask. Well, the reason for this is several things:

Your biggest asset

When it comes to digital transformation for nonprofits, your people are your biggest asset. We need to ensure that their ideas, vision, and where they are ‘at’ in their technical journey are taken into consideration. 

You may have heard that the most important aspect to a technical project is the ‘Discovery Phase’. This is true because your people help us understand how they currently do their jobs, how they want to do their jobs and what currently sucks their time away the quickest. 

User adoption

Your people will be the biggest ‘thing’ driving your mission, programmes and ideas forward, so it’s so important that they are at the forefront of the technology project as you move forward through it. 

It is so important that your team and people are clued up on the entire process, even if it’s just at a high level and WHY it’s going to be amazing for their roles. They need to know what things will be automated, what will be better for them as a result of the changes, how they can get involved in the processes if your organization wants to engage people and their ideas when it makes sense in the process. 

If you get the user adoption piece right, your entire project will be off to an incredible start on Go-Live Day! It really can make a huge difference to the success of nonprofit digital transformation – and your charity Salesforce partner can play a very significant role here.

Excitement

Go-Live Day should be a celebration for the entire team – even people are just going to use it for the smallest task, as well as those who will use it for everything. Think of ways to make the journey and the discovery phase exciting. 

Getting people excited from the very beginning is the best way to encourage ideas, innovation, and things such as finding the best solutions to automating current processes. Your nonprofit Salesforce Partner will be able to help you with this, too. Just as we’re experienced in advising our clients in raising awareness and increasing adoption of your Salesforce solution, we can also guide you in amping up the excitement and enthusiasm which can both be so essential to a successful charity Salesforce story, or for any other nonprofit organization.   

Innovation

“If you look at history, innovation doesn’t come just from giving people incentives; it comes from creating environments where their ideas can connect.” 

Innovation plays a pivotal role in the discovery phase of a Salesforce project, as it drives the development of cutting-edge solutions tailored to the unique needs of an organization. By fostering innovation during this crucial stage, businesses can identify novel approaches, technologies, and strategies to enhance their sales processes, customer relationships, and overall operational efficiency. 

As mentioned above, if you’re able to get your teams excited about digital transformation, it’ll enable the innovative ideas to flow. Want to create a way for all donors in a certain area to get an impactful update as to what has happened lately in their area so the cause feels like it’s just for them, and speaking to their neighbourhood? Let’s talk about these things during discovery and let the innovation flow. 

Making data fun

Making the Salesforce discovery phase fun while dealing with data can help engage stakeholders and foster creativity. Here are some ways to inject fun into this crucial stage:

Gamification: Introduce elements of gamification into data analysis. Create leaderboards, challenges, or quizzes that reward participants for their contributions and insights. This can turn the process into a friendly competition and make it more engaging.

Storytelling: Encourage participants to craft stories around the data. Humans connect with narratives, so turning data into a compelling story can make the discovery phase more interesting. Use real-life examples and scenarios to illustrate the impact of data on the organization, and get your teams to think about how they might want to use data in storytelling moving forward.

Interactive User Acceptance Testing (UAT): When we get to the tailend of the Salesforce build it’s important for end-users to understand how the Salesforce implementation will look when completed. This not only makes data more tangible but also sparks enthusiasm about the potential outcomes.

Guest Speakers and Experts: Work with VRP to bring in guest speakers or experts who can provide fresh perspectives on the data or share success stories related to Salesforce implementations. Their insights can inspire the team and inject enthusiasm, we can bring in Salesforce professionals or other nonprofits to inspire your team.

We can help you put people at the centre of nonprofit digital transformation

We understand that your people are your biggest asset, and the biggest slice of your nonprofit digital transformation via Salesforce is going to be your people. So, let’s start a conversation about how So, let’s start a conversation about how our Nonprofit Practice can get your team super excited about the technology that currently exists that can help them scale, increase fundraising, and do lots of other amazing things on their journey. 

Get in Touch

About the Author

Laura Croudace

Global Nonprofit Practice Director, VRP Consulting

Laura has worked in the nonprofit sector for over 12 years, including as a Head of Fundraising and Salesforce Partner Advisory Board Member. As our global Nonprofit Practice Director, she is passionate about enabling nonprofits everywhere to harness the power of Salesforce technology.