Building Stronger Relationships with Stakeholder Management in Nonprofit Cloud
Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud provides a robust and flexible platform for managing your programs, fundraising efforts, and crucial relationships, which drive your mission forward.
Stakeholder Management is a key aspect of this ecosystem, which allows nonprofits to better identify, engage, and nurture the diverse group of individuals and organizations that shape their mission. In this post, we’ll explore Stakeholder Management within the Nonprofit Cloud, drawing on insights from the Trailhead Module and providing practical guidance on migrating from NPSP (Nonprofit Success Pack) to the new Nonprofit Cloud.
What Is Stakeholder Management in Nonprofit Cloud?
In the nonprofit sector, stakeholders can encompass a broad range of individuals and entities - funders, community partners, volunteers, beneficiaries, staff members, and even the broader public. Effective Stakeholder Management involves systematically identifying these groups, understanding their interests and influence, and crafting engagement strategies that align with your organization’s mission.
Why It Matters
- Mission Alignment: By clearly mapping which stakeholders align with which initiatives, you can prioritize resources and make informed decisions.
- Enhanced Collaboration: Strong stakeholder management leads to better communication and collaboration, ensuring everyone is working toward shared goals.
- Sustainable Impact: Engaged stakeholders are more likely to support long-term sustainability - through funding, advocacy, or volunteer efforts.
Key Elements of Stakeholder Management in Nonprofit Cloud
According to the Stakeholder Management Trailhead module, nonprofits using Nonprofit Cloud typically follow a structured approach to stakeholder engagement:
Identify StakeholdersThe first step is to list out all possible individuals or groups who can affect or be affected by your organization. Nonprofit Cloud’s constituent records can be tailored to track different stakeholder types, from major donors to service recipients.
Not all stakeholders have the same level of influence or interest in your programs. Salesforce tools let you categorize stakeholders based on their impact and potential engagement levels. By capturing this data, you can focus your outreach and relationship-building efforts more effectively.
Engagement might mean consistent communication, collaboration on projects, or offering exclusive opportunities for feedback. In Nonprofit Cloud, you can utilize native features such as Campaigns or Engagement Plans to stay organized and on track with your stakeholder engagement strategy.
Salesforce reports and dashboards enable real-time visibility into the effectiveness of your stakeholder management efforts. By tracking metrics such as event attendance, volunteer hours, or philanthropic contributions, you can fine-tune your engagement strategies for greater impact.
Key Objects and Entities for Stakeholder Management
Nonprofit Cloud introduces or leverages several data model components that let you track stakeholder relationships with precision. Below are some of the most common objects and relationship entities you may see in Stakeholder Management.
Person Account
- It combines the functionality of an Account and a Contact into a single record, representing an individual rather than a company or organization.
- Useful for nonprofits that primarily engage with individuals (e.g., donors, program participants, volunteers) and want to avoid managing separate Account and Contact records for each person.
Business Account
- Represents an organization, institution, or business.
- In a nonprofit context, Business Accounts can be used for corporate donors, foundations, or partner organizations.
Account Contact Relationship
- A standard Salesforce feature that links Contacts to multiple Accounts, allowing you to track the nature of those relationships.
- For example, a Contact might be the primary contact at a Business Account but also serve as a board member at another nonprofit organization.
- This object helps you see all the different ways a single person can be related to various organizations in your ecosystem.
Contact Contact Relationship
- A specialized relationship record that connects two individual Contacts.
- Useful in scenarios where individuals have personal or professional relationships (e.g., a mentor-mentee relationship, a family connection, or a colleague partnership), providing you with a fuller picture of how people in your network are linked.
Account Account Relationship
- Tracks the connection between two separate Accounts (for example, a corporate sponsor that partners with a nonprofit organization or a subsidiary relationship between two business entities).
- This helps you see affiliation or partnership structures at the organizational level.
Party Role Relationship
- An advanced relationship concept within Salesforce Industries and the new Nonprofit Cloud.
- Enables you to define the role one entity (a “party”) plays in relation to another, such as “Advisor,” “Board Member,” or “Volunteer Coordinator.”
Party Relationship Group
- A means of grouping multiple parties -individuals or organizations - together under a specific relationship umbrella (e.g., a working group, a project committee, or a coalition).
- Facilitates more advanced engagement strategies by managing communication or reporting at the group level.
Bringing It All Together
These objects and relationships let you track each stakeholder's multifaceted connections with your organization (and with one another). By centralizing these relationships in Nonprofit Cloud, you gain a more holistic view of the entire stakeholder ecosystem, enabling smarter engagement strategies.
Migration from NPSP to Nonprofit Cloud (NPC)
Why Migrate?
- Unified Architecture: NPC consolidates program management, stakeholder relationships, and fundraising in a single, industry-focused platform.
- Enhanced Functionality: Includes robust objects for capturing mission-related activities (e.g., Program and Benefit) and advanced relationships (like Party Role Relationship).
- Future-Ready: Salesforce is prioritizing continued innovation in Nonprofit Cloud, ensuring long-term support and growth.
Key Considerations
Data Assessment
- Conduct a thorough audit of your existing NPSP data - identify duplicates, incomplete records, and vital historical information.
- Map your NPSP objects (Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities, etc.) to NPC objects, keeping in mind the new relationship entities like Account Contact Relationship or Party Role Relationship.
Customization Review
- Review custom objects, fields, automation, and integrations in NPSP.
- Decide which customizations can be replaced or enhanced by NPC’s native functionality.
Technical Strategy
- Determine whether you’ll use a phased approach (migrating pieces of data or functionality in stages) or a big-bang approach (one-time cutover).
- Engage implementation partners who are familiar with both NPSP and NPC.
Change Management
- Train staff and volunteers on new objects like Program, Benefit, Party Role Relationship, etc.
- Provide sandbox environments for testing.
- Set up a feedback loop for post-launch issue resolution.
Conclusion
Stakeholder Management in the Nonprofit Cloud empowers nonprofits to strengthen relationships with all individuals and groups critical to their mission. By leveraging structured data models - such as Person and Business Accounts, relationship objects (Account Contact, Contact Contact, Account Account), and advanced Party Role or Party Group concepts - your organization can get a 360-degree view of every stakeholder’s interests and influences.
If you’re currently on NPSP and considering transitioning to the new Nonprofit Cloud, a thorough approach - spanning data mapping, customization review, and user training - will ensure you fully harness the platform’s enhanced capabilities. By focusing on both stakeholder and program data, you’ll be equipped to deliver on your mission while continually refining your outreach for maximum, measurable impact.
By investing in effective stakeholder management and planning a careful migration strategy, your organization will be well-positioned to deepen stakeholder relationships and amplify your nonprofit’s reach and impact.
Comments
Post a Comment