3 steps to tech success for small charities (Purple Vision)

Purple Vision are non-profit experts. We have been around since 2003. Originally we just used to consult around
Raiser’s Edge, but since 2010 we have been a Salesforce partner too.
We have helped hundreds of charities and non-profits to use technology to support fundraising, programme
management and more.
Our expertise comes from years of experience in providing services to the sector, and from our team and the
experience they bring to the table. Many of the Purple Vision non-profit team have spent time working for a wide
range of charities. We really do know what it’s like.
We’ve launched this guide, and our NPSP QuickStart and Gift Aid services, specifically to help small charities to
make the most of the world class technology that is available for charities via Salesforce’s generous Power of Us
license offer.
We know from experience that if the right foundations are in place within an organisation, a technology project
can be a success. Without strategy or a driver for change within an organisation, projects can fail.
We hope this short guide helps you make your tech a success.
2

Your charities vision and mission are key to success – they inform the strategy, and
your strategy in turn informs your technology choices.
to tech success for
What is behind your need to adopt tech? What makes now different to other times
you’ve talked about a technology change? Commitment to change is essential to
success.
Select your tech and make a start – demonstrating immediate results helps the
whole team stay on-board with your tech transformation plans.
3

You’ve got a mission, right? You know what you want your impact on the world to be, you
know the change you want to see or to be. You even know what your role is in making that
happen. All good.
Your charity probably has a plan or a strategy that outlines what you are going to do over
the next year, three years or five years to achieve your mission.
So if you are lucky, your plan includes consideration for internal infrastructure – principally
a CRM solution, but also the other kit that you need to help you deliver the goals.
But a lot of the time, it doesn’t.
How is a spreadsheet or a list in your email system going to help you deliver at scale?
4

What’s the technology plan to fit alongside the strategic plan?
How are you going to deliver your goals with minimal investment in the technology that is
essential to help you succeed?
The practical realities of running a small charity mean that you have a limited budget
(and like all charities are keen to keep resources beneficiary focused) and limited people
resources too.
If you don’t have an articulated vision, mission and values or medium term plan, we
strongly suggest that you start your journey to technology success here. It is your strategy
that will ultimately inform the choices you make about technology – your roadmap for the
future.
5

6
Recognising that you can’t deliver what you need without some investment in your tech is a
milestone to reach.
Many small charities ‘struggle on’ for years. In many cases, charities are using tools for things
that they shouldn’t be used for (lists of clients in MS Word, maybe a spreadsheet) or which mean
that data can’t be used effectively. Some may even be risking data security too.
Because of our ‘struggle on’ approach, making a choice to look at technical infrastructure is
usually only something that happens in a charity when it needs to.
Typically something happens that means it becomes a priority.
Some of this is positive – you may have been left a legacy or gift means there is capital for
capacity building.
There may have been a new-service win or a step up in programme or approach. There may also
be a new colleague who joins, bringing some fresh insight or direction.
Often, there is a need to increase fundraising for the sustainability of the organisation.

7
Sometimes the impetus for change is that something has gone wrong. A ‘near-miss ‘ with data
or a more serious issue that shines a spotlight on failings in how charities are handling data or
customer information caused by people, process or procedure.
Today’s charity landscape is very different than last years – regulations have changed and the
reputation of charities is under scrutiny from all angles.
Each of these factors is all the impetus that is needed to drive change.
How are you going to manage issues as wide ranging as data security, donor opt ins and
preferences and have proper fundraising oversight and reporting if you’re using a spreadsheet?!
Our point – what’s ‘your ‘ tipping point?
What makes this the right time to make a change?
It's vital that whatever drives the change is mandated at a senior level (Board, Directors) for it to
drive through an organisation – even a small one – and to have the desired results.
Without a ‘from the top’ commitment to change, and drive through new ways of working,
projects stumble, however important they are.

8
The single most important thing in driving change in a small charity is to deliver results
quickly.
Results show that you mean what you say about change, and results show staff the benefits
that they can expect to gain as the technology programme matures. Agility in the tools you
pick and your approach to deliver is key. Arguably, picking the right tech is pretty key, too.
This is where we head back to your strategy – most small charities have ambitions that
they’ll grow, but what’s your plan? More fundraising? More programme delivery? More
volunteers? Making an investment based on where you are now is a short term move – so
review your strategy and plan ahead.
Not only does the tool you pick need to be agile, it needs to be scalable too. There are a
plethora of options in the market which may meet your needs. Which tool is right will depend
on three key areas:
• what you use now (and let’s be clear here, Excel is not a database or CRM, nor is a list of
emails in Mailchimp, Eventbrite or any other online tool).
• your plans (and how you’ll need to monitor, manage and report on key areas around these)
• budget (how much you have to spend)

9
Next, think about how you’ll use the technology.
In a small charity where a team is out about as much as they are in an office, remote access
is key.
Which leaves you with one type of system to look at – cloud-based.
There’s one other area to tackle here, and that is how you decide which system – which
CRM – sits at the heart of your tech tool set.
Many charities get tied up in knots going through a long-winded procurement process.
While we all appreciate the need for scrutiny and best-value, best use of time and resources
is also key.
A long-winded process is simply distracting – there are only a small number of tools that are
suitable for small charities and are within financial reach.
We recommend Salesforce – let us explain why.

1. Salesforce is a CRM system – customer
relationship management – often described as the
world’s No 1.
2. It’s a cloud-based solution – you need no
technical infrastructure in the office – just log in
and access anywhere.
3. It’s a platform solution – that means it is easy
to build on the robust technical base that is
controlled, managed and updated 3x per year.
4. It’s an organisation-wide solution – it’s not just
a solution for one area of your charity. Your
programme team, finance team and fundraising
people can all work securely in the same system
using their tools.
5. It’s secure – as well as being securely hosted
and carefully managed, you can set user-access to
different levels too – so you can see it all, or only
see what’s job-role relevant and stages in between.
11
6. It’s future-proof – Salesforce continually innovates
and updates the features and functionality in system
so it’s always evolving. Some of these are pushed
through to everyone, others are packed up together
into innovative new products. Its here to stay.
7. App Exchange – the Salesforce App Exchange is
jam-packed with thousands of add-ons for your
Salesforce system. Some of them free for charities,
too.
But the best by far is this:
8. Ten free licenses for charities – Salesforce donate
1% of their time, product and profits to helping non-
profits.
Salesforce.org manage this donation and make it available to
charities as ten free Salesforce licenses (Power of 10). To help
charities get started on Salesforce, there’s a package of charity
functionality called the Non Profit Success Pack that is open-
source and accessible to those who take up the P10 free
license offer.

 communications
 campaigns and other outbound activities
 Structures to manage people and
relationships:
 the relationships between individual donors,
 their households,
 the organisations they are associated with.
 Standard models for:
 creating and managing pledges,
 donations,
 in-mem
 recurring gifts
 volunteers
 programme management
 Integrations with thousands of apps for a
range of different tasks and functions
12
Salesforce is a huge CRM system widely used by
hundreds of thousands of businesses around the
world. It is rich in functionality and there’s
seemingly nothing it is not capable of delivering.
But charities are not the same as businesses.
The non profit success pack pulls together some
of the clever tech available in Salesforce, creating a
package structured around how charities work.
 Manage and track lots of classic non profit tasks:
 contacts and households
 donation payments
 organisation accounts and affiliations
 grant life-cycles
 relationships between contacts, donations and
recurring donations

Salesforce Platform
Lightning Interface
Data Infrastructure | Secure | Cloud-based
NPSP
Non Profit Success Pack – specific functionality for charities and nfp’s
3rd party integrations
Connecting legacy systems and third party solutions | Customisations
4. Find thousands of
function specific and
task oriented apps and
integrations via the
Salesforce App
Exchange.
3. Integrate other
external systems via API
so all your data is in one
place.
1. The Salesforce
platform is a securely
hosted, accessible and
flexible world-class data
platform.
2. NPSP works with
Salesforce data
architecture to build out
features and functions
to enable NFP’S to use
Salesforce
13
App Exchange
000’s of task and function related apps to add features and functionality

There’s one tiny flaw with Salesforce and it’s this.
It is often dismissed as too expensive despite being one of the best options for charities,
because of the need to involve a third party in setting it up – unless you have some great
technical expertise in your team.
In our extensive experience, the majority of small charities all ask for similar kinds of
functionality across their charity operations, and also can’t afford to spend a lot of cash.
Our response is NPSP QuickStart. It’s our way to give small charities maximum functionality
at minimal (fixed price) cost – just £1995 in fact.
Purple Vision’s NPSP QuickStart offers the functional areas that are essential to you making
a start on Salesforce. Packaged in a way that removes the need for costly face-to-face
consultancy time, and thus, keeping the costs low.
Of course this only works because we have an excellent team who understand small
charities and a strong reputation for delivering success with Salesforce.
14

NPSP QuickStart includes:
 Assistance with obtaining Power of Us license donation (if you don’t already have
this)
 Installation and configuration of the Non Profit Success Pack
 Renaming the elements of Salesforce so they make sense in the non-profit world
 Importation of accounts, contacts and basic historical data (you provide the data in a
template format and we will upload)
 Customisation of up to 10 fields linked to either Organisations, Individual's or
Donations / Grants (don’t worry, we’ll explain!)
 Management of communication opt-ins for individuals
 Grants management – the ability to manage grants and your grant applications
 Basic Social Media connector
 Mailchimp integration to your existing Mailchimp account
 An online training session
 A set of standard reports and a dashboard that give you the information you need at a
glance
 A user guide and training guide so you can administer and make basic changes to
your system without having to come back to us
15
All for just £1995 + vat

Once you start with Salesforce NPSP
QuickStart, you can just keep going.
Salesforce is a flexible, extendable platform that
will grow with you as your charity grows and
expands. As you take on more staff. As you
raise more income. As you help more people.
Salesforce will help your organisation beyond
fundraising – there are applications for every
area of your charity business.
All you need to do is take the next step and get
started with tech success for your small charity.
But first – make a decision for QuickStart and
make a quick start on delivering your vision,
mission and values with the right technology to
help.
16

Salesforce resources
Salesforce.org
Salesforce NPSP
Salesforce Power of 10 licenses
More from Purple Vision
Our blog on the Power of Ten & getting started with Salesforce
Our blog on Steps to Success with Salesforce NPSP
More about Purple Vision’s NPSP QuickStart
More about Purple Vision’s Gift Aid for NPSP
17

Purple Vision Ltd
 info@purple-vision.com
 0203 176 1249
 www.purple-vision.com
 1.04 Canterbury Court, Kennington Park, 1-3 Brixton Road, London SW9 6DE UK

3 steps to tech success for small charities (Purple Vision)

More Related Content

3 steps to tech success for small charities (Purple Vision)