Is Salesforce FREE for Nonprofits?
Oftentimes I get the question, “Is Salesforce free for nonprofits?”
Let’s take a quick minute to break down costs associated with a donor database system. The short answer is yes. Salesforce.org is a very generous organization in that any eligible nonprofit can receive access to the platform and 10 user licenses for free, for life. That is definitely a draw for people that are looking to implement a new system. And it includes unlimited records. So it’s not like some of the competitors that charge you based on how many people are in your system.
So where does the cost come in?
Cost comes in with your Salesforce implementation. Getting your system set up, configured and customized to your organization’s specific needs is where you’re going to find cost.
Once your implementation is in place, and you have staff that are trained well, you should be off and running without additional Salesforce support needed.
Sometimes organizations will want to bring on a certified administrator, either on their staff or as an independent contractor, that can help with needs as they come up. They can make sure new staff are trained properly, help implement new customizations and automations and can answer questions about error messages. It’s basically like your own personal customer support system. But that is completely optional. If you have staff that are well versed in Salesforce, you don’t have to hire anyone that can assist with your platform.
The other space where cost comes in, is if you have specific integrations that you want to connect to your Salesforce system.
For example, if you want to process credit card payments in Salesforce, that’s an integration that you would pay a third party software to integrate in your system.
If you have event management tools and you want to integrate those within your system so they talk to one another, you can do that too. That’s typically a third party organization and there’s cost associated.
However, some other programs are free. For example, MailChimp, Constant Contact and Slack implementation are free. There are a bunch of free tools just as there are paid tools. It really is dependent on your organization’s needs and what your goals are.
So talk with your implementation partner and learn a bit about what you need and what your budget should look like.
One of my favorite things about Salesforce is it can be very, very low cost to very small nonprofits, and it can have robust tools and systems available at a very meager budget. So, as you’re doing your shopping, take in those considerations that you’ll have some upfront costs and the costs for the long term are very a la carte based on your needs.
Hopefully this helps you in your shopping adventure, when it comes to finding a perfect donor database that fits your organization.
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