From Train Strikes to Trailblazing: How the Day Began
Last week, I jumped on a plane and headed to Amsterdam to attend the inaugural Salesforce Amsterdam Nonprofit Community Day. With train strikes on the event day, huge thanks go to fellow MVP Andre van Kampen, who kindly drove Justyna Krajewska and me to the event, and dropped me back at the airport afterwards.
The day promised a mix of networking, innovation workshops, and hands-on product training — all delivered in a community-driven, collaborative style. And it absolutely delivered on that promise.
A Morning of Insights: Nonprofit Cloud and Roadmaps
After a solid breakfast, the day kicked off with a welcome from Cori O’Brien, Director of Commons & Nonprofit Community. This led into a “Meet the Makers” session for Nonprofit Cloud (NPC), led by Lori Freeman, featuring:
- A glimpse into the NPC product roadmap
- Key insights from the Salesforce team
- An open Q&A session with attendees
Getting Our Hands Dirty: Innovation and Community Feedback
The afternoon brought a community innovation activity where we got to identify what works — and what doesn’t — in the current Nonprofit Salesforce experience. The results? Strikingly similar to those from our community sprints – the same challenges appear across the globe.
We also dove into Data Cloud and Nonprofit Cloud (NPC) industry common components, and finally wrapped up with a hands-on Agentforce workshop. In less than an hour, everyone built an agent to review their organisation’s end-of-year report — a great way to demystify AI usage for Nonprofits.
Kudos to Sophie Van Poele and Redouan Cherkaoui for leading the afternoon admin sessions, and to FinDock for sponsoring the much-needed breaks and lunch.
Key Takeaways: What We Learned About NPC, NPSP, and Data Cloud
📌 Nonprofit Cloud (NPC) Highlights
- 4,500 customers currently on NPC vs 56,000 NPSP customers
- The FY26 roadmap includes Volunteer Management, Agentforce for Fundraising, Programs, and Grantmaking and a focus on “Getting Started Faster” to reduce cost and implementation time
- Salesforce is encouraging the move to NPC due to its added value
- Industry common components like the Business Rules Engine and Data Processing Engine are powerful — but complex
🧱 Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) Still Stands
- Salesforce remains committed to supporting NPSP
- 12,000 NPSP customers are based in EMEA
- No “end of life” as the product is open source, but no new features will be developed going forward
🧠 Data Cloud and Agentforce: Power & Limitations
- Is Data Cloud essential for every org? Salesforce says yes — but I feel clarity is needed for smaller orgs – the majority of my clients would not see a return on investment (ROI) from Data Cloud.
- The Agentforce workshop showed promise, but in my opinion, practical application outside of service use cases remains unclear, particularly when it comes to the ROI – although an interesting video was showed for nonprofit Orraa to match make investers with projects, however it’s not slated to be live until 2026.
- For now, many Nonprofits may not yet be ready to fully leverage Data Cloud or Agentforce without clear value and use-case alignment.
Personal Reflections: Promise Meets Pragmatism
While Nonprofit Cloud is maturing and improving, it’s still a relatively young product with known challenges and limitations. Salesforce is working through its backlog, prioritising feedback from the IdeaExchange, which should improve things over time.
However, my concern lies with micro and small nonprofits — the true P10s (10 users or fewer) or even those slightly larger. For these organisations, NPC may feel too complex, too fast. Many of these groups are still transitioning from spreadsheets and basic tools — and I worry they may be tempted to look outside the Salesforce ecosystem entirely.
If NPC is truly the future, then we need:
- A simple quick-start path: just a basic account/contact model and core fundraising.
- Possibly a solution outside of NPC, maybe a trimmed down NPSP with Sales Cloud to servce as a realistic entry point.
- An understanding that NPC/Data Cloud/Agentforce is not the solution for every organisation.
To turn around on of the slides shared, “You don’t need to boil the ocean.”
Let’s help small nonprofits start small — with tools they can manage, grow into, and afford.
In the larger nonprofit space, NPC shows promise, especially with its industry components. But consultants and partners must make careful decisions about implementation — sometimes a lightweight tool like DLRS may offer more value than heavyweight processing engines.
Final Thoughts
The first Amsterdam Nonprofit Community Day was a strong step forward in community-driven innovation for Salesforce Nonprofit users. While there are growing pains with Nonprofit Cloud (NPC), there’s also genuine potential, however I still have concerns for the smallest of Nonprofits and where they fit into the Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud vision.
Looking forward to what’s next — and continuing the conversation.
Thanks to ChatGPT for helping me turn my blog article notes into an article!
