Soapbox Engage Blog

Welcome to 2017, amigos! To start of the new year, we're beginning a process of updating the PUB Crawl newsletter to make it more readable based on your suggestions. That's going to include updates to the design, content, and potentially a cutting edge scratch-and-sniff edition filled with the aromas of a taqueria.

A guy can dream, right?

Have ideas as to how we can make the PUB Crawl better for your exquisite tastes? Just reply to this email and don't hold back on your feedback.

Don't forget, you can have the goodness of the PUB Crawl delivered into your inbox each Monday morning by subscribing today!

Don't forget, you can have the goodness of the PUB Crawl delivered into your inbox each Monday morning by subscribing today!

Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack Version 3.85 brought a packed harvest of improvements, from deep cloning of Engagement Plan templates to friendlier NPSP error emails to enhanced Custom Household Naming to more graceful handling of errors with the NPSP Data Importer and Opportunity Naming:

With Version 3.84, the Salesforce.org Nonprofit Success Pack gets friendlier and more helpful with its error messages triggered by validation rules or required fields. If only life were that friendly and helpful:

With Version 3.83, the Salesforce.org Nonprofit Success Pack falls more in line with standard Salesforce functionality in how it deals with error handling and scheduled batches:

Welcome back from Thanksgiving break, my American friends. Time to get back to work, changemakers! Somewhere, deep in the halls of your organization, your fundraising team needs a big hug as they hurtle towards tomorrow's Giving Tuesday. Aside from handing them keys to a fantastic online fundraising toolset, how about pouring them a healthy glass of Salesforce knowledge here at the PUB Crawl?

Don't forget, you can have the goodness of the PUB Crawl delivered into your inbox each Monday morning by subscribing today!

As we dive into a short week of work here in the US, it's good to remember all the things that make us thankful. Wider support of Lightning in Salesforce. The end of the presidential election. NPSP release notes. Burritos.

Let's raise a glass to a fantastic community of Salesforce nonprofiteers, and take a sip of knowledge at the PUB Crawl, shall we?

Don't forget, you can have the goodness of the PUB Crawl delivered into your inbox each Monday morning by subscribing today!

The Treatment Advocacy Center engages in important work to eliminate barriers to the timely and effective treatment of severe mental illness. As long-time Soapbox clients, we couldn't be happier to have them using our platform to get out their message - or more ecstatic about the recent redesign we launched with them to update their look, make them mobile-friendly, and better drive home their mission.

As the US crawls across the finish line of a presidential election, I'll be taking to the skies to head to Canada. No, not to scout new homes in Vancouver (does anyone know a good real estate agent...just asking for a friend), but to facilitate the NPSP Day Vancouver. And yes, I already voted early.

Regardless where the Americans among you will be watching the election results roll in, or where non-American friends will be preparing their homes to welcome all those folks saying they're going to move if their candidate loses, join me in a round of pre-election knowledge at the PUB Crawl.

Don't forget, you can have the goodness of the PUB Crawl delivered into your inbox each Monday morning by subscribing today!

In what many have already dubbed the Salesforce non-profit world's "October surprise" for 2016, it's come to my attention that a treasure trove of videos has been released purporting to educate non-profit Salesforce organizations.

To top that off, a community of non-profiteers in San Francisco gathered at NPSP Day SF to self-organize and answer each other's Salesforce questions.

It's time to get to the bottom of all this "community enablement"...with a tall glass of knowledge at the PUB Crawl!

Don't forget, you can have the goodness of the PUB Crawl delivered into your inbox each Monday morning by subscribing today!

With 30% of all donations coming in during the final month of the year, your development team may be in a tailspin to get ready. We’ve got your fundraising survival kit to help you sail through the end of the year. In this webinar recording from veteran fundraiser, Marisa Taylor, learn tips, tricks and ideas on how to make this your best year yet. Learn what tools she’s implemented to increase end of year giving and mobilize donors.

When our NPSP community comes together, great things happen. And that's even before we get to the burritos. We find that the opportunity to learn from each other enables us to become empowered contributors to our community. So it's not surprising that in the middle of American election hurricane was an eye of peace and happiness last Friday at the NPSP Day DC.

As I get ready to bring the NPSP community gatherings to San Francisco this week, it's time to fill up the batteries again on some Salesforce knowledge. Another PUB Crawl round on the house!

Don't forget, you can have the goodness of the PUB Crawl delivered into your inbox each Monday morning by subscribing today!

As I gear up for three awesome NPSP community events in the next four weeks (get ready Washington DC, San Francisco, and Vancouver), I decided it might be a good time to unpack from Dreamforce. With notes scribbled on the sides of business cards and flyers, I figure others are in the same boat, scratching their heads trying to remember everything they heard at Dreamforce.

How about we dive into the list of "wait, did someone tell me that I could do..." items in this week's PUB Crawl!

Don't forget, you can have the goodness of the PUB Crawl delivered into your inbox each Monday morning by subscribing today!

As we look at Dreamforce 2016 in the rearview mirror, it's obvious to see that this was an important inflection point for our nonprofit Salesforce community. Community members rallied support and resources behind the NPSP. Salesforce.org showcased the fantastic investments it's making into the NPSP. The NPSP gained its first gymnastics team sponsorship (see below).

In front of us is an incredible opportunity to focus on the impact we can make together on the world. I can't think of a better way to start the next leg of this journey than to post-Dreamforce detox with a tall glass of knowledge at the PUB Crawl. Shall we?

Don't forget, you can have the goodness of the PUB Crawl delivered into your inbox each Monday morning by subscribing today!

With Version 3.82, the NPSP app trades in its "Nonprofit Starter Pack" moniker for the new "Nonprofit Success Pack" name. In case you missed our earlier take on the name and the history of this valuable offering for nonprofits, we share this extended Release Notes Rundown:

Today is the first anniversary of the PUB Crawl, and I couldn't be more satisfied than to be writing it alongside individuals I've been honored to serve alongside in our Salesforce non-profit sector. The PUB Crawl was started to fill a gap I saw in our community's knowledge sharing. Others feel the same way about other areas in our community. Now it's time to combine our talents and take this vision further.

At the Goat Farm Retreat (it's a long story) this weekend in California, a group of dedicated individuals from across the US designed a plan to find and fill gaps in the non-profit Salesforce ecosystem. There's too much to cover in a PUB Crawl intro, so if you see any of the folks in the photo below at Dreamforce, ask them "what's up with this Goat Farm Retreat?"

Then, get ready to have your mind blown.

I'm excited to see this natural evolution within our ecosystem, and look forward to continuing to share more as we have a chance to collaborate with each other, and you, more. We're ready to help every organization leverage this technology to be successful.

Don't forget, you can have the goodness of the PUB Crawl delivered into your inbox each Monday morning by subscribing today!

Nonprofit Success Pack community days, or NPSP Days, are community-organized and operated events that bring together users, contributors, consultants, developers, and supporters of the Salesforce.org open source Nonprofit Success Pack. Events are focused on empowering users to better understand how to use the NPSP to be successful.

NPSP Days are open to all from prospective users to current Salesforce users, administrators to developers, interested nonprofit executives to consultants, to supporters of any kind! If you have an interest in the Salesforce.org Nonprofit Success Pack, you're welcome and encouraged to join an NPSP Day!

Community days have been held in Phoenix and Portland, Oregon. DC, San Francisco, and Vancouver are scheduled and coming soon with additional locations in the works.

Visit NPSPDay.org for further details and to register to attend! See you at an NPSP Day near you soon!

The Salesforce.org Nonprofit Success Pack matters. At Soapbox Engage, we get to see the difference it makes every day for the mission of the nonprofits we serve. And as a former nonprofit accidental techie, I am often caught up in thoughts of projects gone-by and how the Nonprofit Success Pack could have transformed efforts and increased impact.

Here are three scenes that often come to mind from this grizzled veteran’s nonprofit past. I humbly submit them, nostalgia-encrusted and mundanely personal as they may be, as emblematic of how the Nonprofit Success Pack has transformed nonprofit technology and why it matters.

We rundown the highlights of a YUUUUUGE release that adds Levels and Engagement Plans to the NPSP so nonprofits can be even more strategic in engaging with their supporters:

Behold! The Salesforce Nonprofit Starter Pack has become the Nonprofit Success Pack! We offer our take on the history of this insanely valuable solution for nonprofits, discuss names that might have been, and gush over the ways it empowers organizations to rock the world for social good: