Think the Nonprofit Starter Pack is just for starters? Think again.

By: Lila Pigott

It’s a common misconception that the Nonprofit Starter Pack (NPSP) is only for small organizations just starting out on Salesforce. After all, it’s called a “Starter Pack,” right? Well, it’s high time this myth was put to rest. We’re here to tell you it can be a great jumping-off point for organizations of all sizes, from itty-bitty to enterprise level. It’s simultaneously a starter-pack and a super-pack! Why? It’s the most customizable option on the market today for nonprofits.

A Little History

We helped with the original NPSP development back in 2008, and our devotion has only become stronger over the years as we’ve seen the leaps and bounds it’s taken, including the most recent NPSP 3.0 release. Today, the Power of Us Hub NPSP group has nearly 7,000 members, so it’s not just us.

A year ago we called the NPSP a “starter home” compared to NGO Connect, but since the 3.0 release we’ve adjusted our thinking and see it more as a plot of land that you can build almost anything on. We’ve seen NPSP used by clients of all sizes over the years, and it can be customized to be a viable alternative to many managed packages including Causeview, NGO Connect, DonorNation, Luminate, Common Ground, Affiniquest, and Patron.

This post will explore some of the ways the Nonprofit Starter Pack can be flexible enough for a wide variety of organizations, and why we often recommend it for our clients above other managed packages.

It’s Better

Nearly the entire NPSP development team started out in the nonprofit sector, so they truly know nonprofits and built a package that directly addresses the needs unique to them. Anyone who has worked at a nonprofit knows that nonprofit “business process” (the journey a person goes on from their first touchpoint with the organization to the point where they’re a full-fledged donor or member) can be quite complicated, and facilitating everything from households to payment processing is correspondingly complicated.

NPSP is so much more than just renaming “Opportunities” with “donations”. Here are just a few of the specific features our consultant team loves about the NPSP:

Household Accounts: Any organization that communicates with households of people will appreciate the support for multiple and seasonal addresses, as well as address verification and household naming customization.
Membership Management: NPSP membership works well for traditional membership organizations, whether your structure is based on regular dues or an annual expiration. An added bonus is you can now specify multiple Membership Record Types.
Relationships: With 20 relationship types build in, NPSP allows you to track how your constituents are connected with each other and provides a visual representation of those contacts through the Relationship Viewer.

It’s Faster

Plain and simple: since the package is open source there is no middleman interfering with the process of development. Here’s how Idealist Consulting developer and NPSP veteran Mike Smith put it:

“I love how it's 100% community supported. New features and even fixes (case in point for one merged in last night) are addressed relatively quickly - especially when compared against nearly any other commercial package. Updates are pushed out every few weeks, which is unheard of for any other package (Salesforce or non-Salesforce).”

Open source also means the nonprofit community has been a huge part of its development and growth over the years, and will soon even have it’s own Advisory Board, which in the words of Open Source Manager Judi Sohn will “be responsible for the development of guidelines for community code contributions, and will review and vote on the prioritization of new feature requests.”

It’s Cheaper

It’s widely known that the Salesforce Foundation gifts up to ten user licenses to nonprofits through the Power of Us program. What might not be so obvious is that when you engage with an implementation partner to customize the NPSP, we typically need less billable hours to facilitate a project since the solution is so robust and flexible already. So, you’re saving money on both products and services.

What if you need additional functionality?

Here is just a small collection of the many ways Idealist Consulting can take the out-of-the-box Nonprofit Starter Pack and customize it to fit like a glove for your organization:

Integrate mass email solutions such as MailChimp.
Integrate peer-to-peer fundraising solutions such as Classy.
Upgrade to NPSP 3.0 from an old release If you started using the Nonprofit Starter Pack before July 2014, it’s likely that you were using the “bucket” or “1 to 1” model. The latest release is based on a household account model and requires a bit of data migration support to upgrade.
Add donor management or program management capabilities. Organizations like our client Cancer Foundation for Life often start using Salesforce and the NPSP for one part of their process, then expand over time.
Complex membership management (see our membership solution kit)
Major donor cultivation (also known as moves management)
Custom integrations with all sorts of other solutions! These are often tricky or impossible with a managed package.

Just give us a shout if you’re interested in talking about what this could look like for your organization. Or check out the recent Salesforce Foundation webinar on Nonprofit Starter Pack: Overview and Newest Features to learn more.