Last week I had the privilege to attend my first Salesforce Community Commons sprint in Washington D.C., a two-day in person gathering of nonprofit professionals, consulting partners, and Salesforce staff. We started by sharing pain points, ideas and identified two new projects to work on in addition to four projects already in process. People often say that community sprints have a magical energy and now I can confirm it: everyone was collaborative and enthusiastic, ready to hear each other’s ideas and then roll up their proverbial sleeves and get to work in whatever way fit their skillsets. 
I was interested in several of the projects (shout out to the amazing work being done on the NPC Best Practices Guide and the Grant Content Kit application!), but decided to dig in and co-lead one of the new projects: Flow Replacements for NPSP and V4S workflows. Below is how Cori O’Brien, the Director of the Nonprofit & Community Commons program at Salesforce and our invaluable guide and facilitator during the sprint, summed up the project:
The Flow Replacements group was formed to help nonprofits easily transition from NPSP and V4S workflow rules to Salesforce Flows.
Work performed at this sprint:
- Worked to reduce 20 workflow rules down to 8.
- Completed initial documentation for recreating all but one set of workflows (phone number-related workflow still in progress due to a complex formula affecting four different fields).
Next Steps:
- Finalize the first iteration of all new flows, complete peer reviews, and create initial end-user documentation.
- Determine whether to keep the solution as-is, package it as an unmanaged solution, or explore other implementation methods.
- Develop a strategy to increase awareness and adoption of these new flows.
To some this may seem like a small scope of work, but it’s these “little gaps” that can make a big difference for orgs struggling to keep up with technical debt in the face of new releases and requirements. Jerod Frenzel, my project co-lead and Salesforce Platform Manager at the nonprofit Rebuilding Together, got the idea for the project as we sat around the table troubleshooting an annoying error message in his org the first morning. As Director of Solution Engineering at The Fresh Perspective Group, I usually spend my days focused on big-picture strategy and theoretical problem solving. It was refreshing to shift gears and spend two days hands-on—building, testing, and collaborating side by side with others who care deeply about solving challenges for the nonprofit sector. 
In addition to the work, we also had fun: happy hours, cake to celebrate the 10th anniversary of community sprints with Sprinty the T-Rex, and two lunch-and-learn sessions. On Monday we had an AMA (ask me anything) hour with the Salesforce Nonprofit Product team who let us pepper them with questions about everything from best practices to feature gaps to product roadmap, and on Tuesday Christina Hernandez, a Strategic Solution Engineer at Salesforce, gave a fantastic presentation on data literacy for nonprofits.
The energy and momentum from the sprint carried me through a packed day at Agentforce World Tour DC. Highlights for me were Steve Shin’s interactive session “Hands on with Agentforce for Nonprofits”, I think describing AI Agents as “an intern with a photographic memory” is a brilliant way to set expectations about what they can and cannot do for organizations. (As someone who worked as a nonprofit manager before moving into consulting, I can confirm from experience that you NEVER let an intern handle critical tasks without supervision!) and the round table led by Joy Rener and Cassie Bartelme detailing the inclusions in the new Foundations $0 SKU, which allows orgs on NPSP to access features such as Data Cloud and Commerce Storefront without any upfront costs. You can watch some of the World Tour session on Salesforce + here.
It's irresponsible to pretend that this is not a stressful time for nonprofit organizations, with ever-increasing uncertainty about funding streams and increasing pressure to provide more services with less administrative overhead. While a week of community work and discussion can’t solve the systemic problems, it is extremely energizing to be face-to-face and laptop-to-laptop with others willing to donate their time and skills to solve the smaller things. Even a small fix, like clearing an error message, means less frustration in someone’s day. It means a nonprofit staff member has a little more time, a little more clarity, and a little more capacity to focus on helping people.
That’s the kind of progress we’re here for. And I’m grateful to be in community with others who feel the same.
