Surviving and Thriving with Case and Program Management on Salesforce

By: Tilly Josephson, Human Services Account Manager, Exponent Partners

Working with social services agencies day-in and day-out, we hear that the rising costs of living with stagnant wages and changing demographics are putting increasing pressure on communities and the nonprofits providing services. Changes in policy at the federal, state, and local levels are further straining resources. You’re doing more with less, as the saying goes.

As if that’s not challenging enough, agencies continue to feel pressure to demonstrate outcomes to justify funding. Data and results are not just nice-to-haves, but requirements now.

How are forward-looking organizations providing high-impact services, managing cases efficiently, and even thriving in this turbulent climate? They are leveraging next generation tools and technology to help them improve programs, deliver more personalized services, and collaborate more effectively with partner organizations.

Here are a few key strategies we’ve seen our human services clients taking:

1. The architecture of your system should reflect your program model to ensure you capture the right data. To prove results, it’s critical to collect the right data to substantiate your impact. Revisit your theory of change and program model to ensure you are tracking the most important metrics. These models should underpin your Salesforce architecture.

2. “Hidden” information can inform new service strategies. Some data tends to slip through the cracks if not effectively tracked in Salesforce: referrals you’ve denied, external referrals, requests for service that weren’t a match. Tracking this data can lead to valuable insights and action. For example, with in-depth data on frequent requests, you can prove to a funder the need for a program expansion.

3. Fewer manual processes maximizes your resources to focus on outcomes. To decrease duplicative efforts and increase process efficiency, you may want to leverage best practices like combining intake forms or consolidating case records. A user-friendly system, like those built on Salesforce’s Lightning user interface, can ensure case managers minimize the amount of time inputting data. This kind of system can also help you automate tasks.

4. Integrate services and collaborate more closely across programs and with partner agencies. The sector can provide more comprehensive and higher quality services to individuals when combining forces or sharing data. But the key is to collaborate without increasing overhead. Salesforce systems can make it easy to share case records, automate referral communications, and collaborate on data to solve this problem.

The Institute for Family Development, a human services organization in Washington State, uses Salesforce and Exponent Case Management to support data and results tracking for their HOMEBUILDERS® program. Through this program, over 30 practitioner teams at organizations around the country provide intensive, in-home crisis intervention, counseling, and life-skills education for families who have children at imminent risk of placement in state-funded care. It is the oldest and best-documented Intensive Family Preservation Services (IFPS) program in the United States.

Join us on October 18 at 2:00pm ET / 11:00am PT for the webinar “Clients, Cases, and Care: Unifying Human Services Client Data in Salesforce” to hear how The Institute for Family Development is connecting practitioners across the country to: 1) manage client data, 2) share best practices for its nationally-renowned Homebuilders ® program, and 3) understand its impact using Salesforce and Exponent Case Management.