Giving Nonprofits the Triple-A Treatment
In my years of working with nonprofits, I have learned many valuable lessons, and among them one consistent observation has stood out: the majority of nonprofits that utilize Salesforce do not have a dedicated full-time Salesforce administrator. In my nonprofit days, I found myself acting at times as an admin and power user, though neither “Salesforce” nor “admin” were part of my title. After transitioning more officially into the Salesforce ecosystem with roles at Salesforce and then at Arkus, I finally found the name for people like me: the mighty army of "Accidental Admins." At Arkus, we work with hundreds of these proud database warriors. Our commitment to supporting mission-driven organizations often centers around helping them thrive as a part of their team. To that end, in this post I am sharing the most common challenges they face and the solutions we see shift these challenges into turning points for success.
Salesforce Can Feel Intimidating
New admins often feel like they’ve been given keys to the Millennium Falcon when they’re not even sure they can drive a stick shift yet. From Flows to Apex to Agentforce to Data Cloud, Salesforce technology has become a universe unto itself. The sheer volume of what can be (and must be) learned is enough to scare people away.
What new admins often need to hear is that while Salesforce can do a thousand things, you can begin by focusing on the first dozen things that are most important to your organization.
In other words, let’s start with the basics, like user profiles, task management, and basic reports and dashboards. And here’s the really great part: with just a little personalized coaching, your admin can go a long way with all the free resources available online.
Missing Documentation
We hear it all the time. “We implemented Salesforce 6-10 years ago. We had a few people who were there for it and who really understood how it worked…and then they left, without leaving us information about our org or the implementation partner. So now we’re up a creek with no paddle.”
A lack of proper documentation of the org’s architecture, explanations of business rationalizations, and regular updating can make understanding your Salesforce org a lot like going on an archaeological dig. “Ahh, these custom objects must be from our last CIO’s era. Oh, and look here! A Workflow Rule perfectly fossilized from 2017!”
No Time for Learning, There’s Work to do!
Dissecting and documenting the ins and outs of your Salesforce org is a wonderful exercise, but an academic engagement runs ashore on the reality of most nonprofits: you need to improve the management and use of your Salesforce instance NOW, not three months from now. However, learning about Salesforce and improving the performance of your org are not mutually exclusive or necessarily sequential steps. Transmitting skills is essentially a three-step process from the learner’s perspective: You do, We do, I do.
First, the learner has to see how a well-trained admin performs their tasks, ie, running reports, creating a new page layout, spot checking data integrity, etc.). Then the learner and the educator should work collaboratively to do that task together, allowing for the learner to build confidence as they undertake new tasks. And finally, when the collaboration has run its course and the learner has accomplished sufficient mastery, they are ready to do it on their own without the real-time support of the trainer.
This is how you make immediate improvements to your org while building your admin’s capacity for future Salesforce autonomy.
A Lifeline to the Accidental Admins: Triple-A Accelerator
With all this in mind, Arkus is proud to introduce our “Triple-A Accelerator.”
Our team has helped hundreds of clients complete more than 2,800 projects and through that we have learned that different teams benefit from different approaches to supporting their success. While we offer a multitude of services across a number of specializations, one approach we see benefit teams is working through something we now call an Accelerator, an accessible format of thoughtfully designed training sessions. Our Triple-A Accelerator provides Nonprofit Admins with up to 13 training modules, each one a mix of a targeted org health check, asynchronous learning (that includes custom demos, curated Trailhead mixes, recommended resources, videos, and articles), alongside scheduled “Live-Lab Working Sessions” for collaborative work time with your trainer, and follow-up support.
Out-of-the-box modules include nonprofit basics, such as user management, governance and privacy, data management, basic configurations and flows, reports and dashboards, data management, documentation, task management, and “plug-n-play” integrations. We are always happy to add in other topics upon request.
Upon completing this Accelerator, you (or your admin) will be able to fully Ascertain, Articulate, & Administer (Hence “Triple-A”) your nonprofit’s Salesforce org. If you're an Accidental Admin, and your organization could benefit from a cost-effective program that will lead to a better understanding of your Salesforce org, Arkus is here to help simplify that journey. Fill out the form to reach out, and we’ll schedule a conversation to explain the program and clarify how we can help your nonprofit organization meet its goals.
