Why an Active Community is Necessary for Success with CRM

If you’re working on social good, you know that community matters. The CRM you choose to further the mission of your organization should have people behind it with the same mindset as you — purpose-driven, socially conscious, and wanting to tell a story. This will help you succeed, since the community who builds your CRM is also the one you’ll be connecting with about with questions, resources, how-tos and even networking opportunities. And let’s be honest—implementing any new technology into your organization can be exciting but intimidating. When you’re thinking about tech for your organization, ask yourself: Does the tech vendor have a strong community, too?

Salesforce.org Education Cloud lets you create your own online community for students.

The Power of Us Hub, where 40,000 nonprofits and education institutions go to ask and answer each other’s questions.

Strong Online Communities Help You Grow

What sets apart one technology provider from the other, then, is the ability to foster an active community that supports its members while also providing a platform for them to collaborate. Not only do active online communities allow you to ask questions, watch tutorials or learn from one another, they allow the technology provider (such as a CRM platform) to monitor problem points, successes and opportunities for growth within their customer base. This social listening is crucial for growing both the good you’re doing and the good the CRM is allowing you to do.

Salesforce.org Open Source Community Sprint participants

Community-Driven Innovation

Does the technology vendor you’re considering build their technology with customers? How do they incorporate feedback on features? Another aspect of a “strong community” is how much people can engage to suggest improvements on technology. A vendor that has community-driven solutions will likely be better at responding to what you need than one that doesn’t.

A Network For Good

Communities can help you network with like-minded changemakers in your area in person as well as online. At Salesforce.org, community-driven technology groups like this have spearheaded everything from devoting Saturday morning to learn code with friends and colleagues, created mentorship programs, and of course, answered hundreds of questions daily. At in-person community events like Open Source Community Sprints, any Salesforce user can join in the fun of improving technology solutions in real time. As the skills of clients grow, so does the reach of the good being purveyed in the world—something we can all get behind. Make sure you consider how large your tech vendor’s community is before you buy their technology!

Meet Like-Minded People

In an online community, you might meet like-minded people to help inspire you as you implement new technology or programs in the course of your work. You might meet fellow nonprofits creating access to clean water, empowering students with reading and writing skills and fighting cancer, amongst other things, who also share similar values.

In an online community like the Power of Us Hub, you can talk to other like-minded people about the difficulties that affect all nonprofits, K-12 schools, higher education institutions and philanthropic organizations of all sizes, around the world. Better yet, you can understand how they’ve tackled these issues through the power of technology and community on an online platform with conversations happening almost hourly!

One example of an active online community in the Power of Us Hub, where you can get the support of thousands of changemakers.

Last but not least, Salesforce also has Community Cloud, so you can create an online community of your own!