A Look Behind a Nonprofit’s Salesforce Experience Cloud

A couple of years ago, we had the opportunity to build Nonprofit New York’s Salesforce Experience Cloud. Their Experience Cloud was a huge success that greatly benefited them and their members. Fast forward to 2019, we presented at Dreamforce, alongside Nonprofit New York, to talk about the positive impact Salesforce Experience Cloud had on their work. Nonprofit New York demonstrated how things worked before and after they transitioned to Salesforce Experience Cloud.

In our case study with Nonprofit New York, we showed you what we built and the results they had, but we only shared what it looks like from an end user’s perspective. If you ever been curious about what Salesforce Experience Cloud looks like from an organization’s perspective, here’s a view into Nonprofit New York’s experience from what they shared from Dreamforce.

The Two Sides of Salesforce Experience Cloud

As mentioned in the case study, Nonprofit New York replaced a library that consisted of links to articles with a dynamic Knowledge Center within their Salesforce Experience Cloud. It not only looks better, but it is better organized and more intuitive to use for its members.

Before Experience Cloud, they had a library that was a list of helpful articles.

Now they have a robust Knowledge Center that is searchable, allows for feedback, and is easier to navigate.

Behind the scenes, it’s also more helpful for Nonprofit New York because of the ability to be able to collect and analyze data. They found it hard to know what content their audience was engaging with the most with their old library. Now with Salesforce Experience Cloud, they have a source of truth. They can make decisions on what type of content to spend more time on because they are sure what their members are looking for because of the data.

Nonprofit New York can easily see what resources are performing the best on its Salesforce Experience Cloud.

An important goal for Nonprofit New York was to build an online community of their constituents, and there was one Experience Cloud feature that really helped them achieve that goal. If you've ever been on the Power of Us Hub or used Chatter, you already know how it works because that feature is Chatter! The difference is that Nonprofit New York’s is branded. From a moderator’s perspective, it looks no different than an end-user except for the editing buttons. This is a simple feature, but if your organization spends the time to engage with members and foster conversation, it can become a very valuable asset for both parties.

From a moderator’s perspective, the forum looks the same except for the edit buttons.

When members can’t get the resources or help they need from their peers, they have the ability to reach out to Nonprofit New York staff. Community members can submit a request for assistance through The Helpline. Nonprofit New York staff receives that request as a Case in Salesforce. The case includes the member's request alongside their Salesforce data so staff can have a complete view of that member.

Members can simply send a message and receive a case number to track their requests.

When Nonprofit New York receives a case, they get a complete picture of the member as well.

When members go and look at their case, they can see who is helping them, and a record of their exchanges.

Along with being able to see all their data, Nonprofit New York can also send messages within the community. The streamlined process makes it easier to stay organized.

This hypothetical member can look back at emails that have been sent to them from Nonprofit New York.

This is what a Nonprofit New York staff member would see when sending an email.

It’s a win-win for both the end-user and the organization. Members have access to an intuitive experience while the organization has all the information they need to answer questions and solve problems.

At our Dreamforce Session, Nonprofit New York shared how effective The Helpline has been. Use started to steadily increase once the audience learned how to use the Community.

But it wasn’t just the Helpline that was being used more, the whole Community was. With the data being collected in Salesforce, they were able to see that monthly logins to the Community were increasing as well. In their presentation at Dreamforce, they explained that with some marketing and education, the Community took off. Nonprofit New York was able to exceed their goal of 200 helpline cases annually, bringing in 330 cases in its first year in the new community.

With a better user interface, hard data to see what resources are being used the most, and the ability to directly communicate with their members from the Salesforce platform has increased their impact, and made it possible to create an actual online community.

A Peek at How Licences Work

Nonprofit New York first needed to know what Experience Cloud Member Licences to use for its members before they could start benefiting from Salesforce Experience Cloud. For Nonprofit New York, they only had to get Customer Experience Cloud licenses for its members, the most commonly used license. There are six licenses according to Salesforce, but here is a breakdown of the three most commonly used ones.

1. Customer Experience Cloud licenses are what a Nonprofit New York member would use. This type of license is great for allowing portal access, peer-to-peer communication, and access to a user’s information. If you ever used Salesforce Experience Cloud (Power of Us is one!), you most likely fall under this one.
2. Customer Experience Cloud Plus license allows for more viewing access into an organization’s Salesforce org. They would be able to see things like dashboards and reports. A user with a Customer Experience Cloud Plus license can see almost as much as a person with a full Salesforce license.
3. Partner Experience Cloud licenses are used mostly for businesses with channel sales. Those businesses usually work with resellers, brokers, or dealers. This type of license allows access to objects such as leads, opportunities, and campaigns.

For more details about Experience Cloud Licences, check out this useful video that breaks down in detail how Experience Cloud Licences work.

Salesforce Experience Cloud is highly customizable, but even a simple one, like Nonprofit New York’s Community, can be effective. As you saw above, Salesforce Experience Cloud can be great for your constituents to receive resources and help in a way that is easy for them. On the flip side, you can help and stay connected with your constituents using data you already have in your Salesforce instance.

Want to Learn More?

We created a bundle of content that contains examples of nonprofits using communities, why they are great for nonprofits, and how you can learn how to use the tech.

Get it Here