NationBuilder vs Salesforce

If you are managing a nonprofit agency, advocacy group, or political campaign, NationBuilder is likely the best tool available for the job. It has everything you need in one package, excellent support from NationBuilder reps, and plenty of reputable case studies that show its effectiveness. There is also a robust network of capable partners that build custom solutions and provide consulting.

I'd be likely to recommend Salesforce to anyone who has time or resources to develop the system to meet their needs - or to hire that out to another firm. Salesforce is a HUGE tool that comes as a blank slate. and not appropriate for any firm that cannot have a near full time support person or developer.

While it's not perfect and can be overly complicated at times, there is not another solution out there that can do what it does. To get the same functionality you would need numerous disparate tools to match the amount of functionality Salesforce has. Having it all aggregated on one platform makes the complicated parts far more bearable

Salesforce is like a bucket of legos. Everyone gets the same bucket, but can build anything you want out of it. I've worked on Salesforce instances for: construction, non-profits, job training, music industries, medical insurance, medical billing, paid parking, and international medical diagnostic companies.

All Force.com apps run on world-class data centers with backup, failover, and disaster-recovery facilities. Force.com has had a proven 99.9 percent uptime record for years. Accordingly, I only recall our instance of Salesforce having one unscheduled, brief down time over 6 years. I can't remember for sure, but it may have been due to our Internet Service Provider (ISP) versus Salesforce itself. Also, Salesforce does it's best to keep customers in the loop:

Trust.salesforce.com is the salesforce.com community's home for real-time information on system performance and security. On this site you'll find:

Live and historical data on system performance
Up-to-the minute information on planned maintenance
Phishing, malicious software and social engineering threats
Best security practices for your organization
Information on how we safeguard your data

Salesforce performance in general is excellent. "The cloud infrastructure beneath Force.com has been fine-tuned over the past 10 years. It powers nearly 100,000+ businesses running more than 185,000 applications that 3 million users count on every day."
Points per Salesforce -
1) Multitenant kernel - With a multitenant platform, each business that uses the app doesn’t have its own copy. Instead, all businesses share a single copy and then customize it for their specific needs.
2) ISO 27001 certified security - You can’t compromise when it comes to enterprise-level security. Force.com is road-tested and trusted by nearly 100,000+ companies, including many of the world’s most security-conscious organizations, such as banks and health care providers.
3) Proven reliability - All Force.com apps run on world-class data centers with backup, failover, and disaster-recovery facilities. Force.com has had a proven 99.9 percent uptime record for years.
4) Proven, real-time scalability - Force.com is used by many of the world's largest enterprises, including Cisco, Japan Post Network, and Symantec. Applications can automatically scale from a few users to millions of page views, as needed.
5) Real-time query optimizer - You need fast access to your data. The Force.com query optimizer delivers under 300ms response time, at a massive scale.
6) Real-time transparent system status - You can always see real-time system performance, availability, and security information at trust.salesforce.com.
7) Real-time upgrades - Unlike traditional software platforms, our upgrades never break your customizations, code, or integrations. We upgrade the platform for you 3 to 4 times each year. As a result, you’re always on the latest version, with access to the latest features, performance, and security enhancements.
8) Real-time sandbox environments - With a single click, you can create copies of your applications, configuration, and data in separate environments for development, testing, and training.
9) Three global production data centers and disaster recovery - Force.com runs on three geographically dispersed, mirrored data centers with built-in replication, disaster recovery, a redundant network backbone, and no single points of failure

Since we do not pay for Premier Support, the agreed upon response times are still pretty good. It is a little ridiculous that you should need to pay tens of thousands of dollars for their best support options and training.

All instructors are Salesforce certified. If you have done any type of customization, then it probably makes more sense to use the consulting partner who implemented your instance of Salesforce for training

The quality of Salesforce's standard online training is high, but limited by nature as to what it covers.
Here are some common online courses -
Getting Started: Navigating Salesforce
Getting Started: Using the Sales Cloud
Getting Started: Administering Salesforce
Getting Started with Reports and Dashboards
Social Media Goes to Work: Chatter
Securing your Salesforce Organization
Getting Started with Data.com
Getting Started with Force.com Pages (Visualforce)
Writing Secure Applications on Force.com

Executive involvement is critical. Make sure you have a good handle on the metrics you would like to ultimately manage. Work as a team to document your business requirements. Whiteboard often. Understand Salesforce's best practice capabilities.

Have a central person identified to handle all report and analysis requests (ie - don't allow multiple people to create reports; have one person create reports and distribute them to decision makers via the Salesforce dashboard or whatever form). Make sure you understand critical dates and develop the project plan accordingly

Salesforce has the unique ability to scale to new products and offerings quickly growing with your enterprise.