Salesforce Agentforce 360 for Nonprofits vs. Submittable

Salesforce is great for experienced users, especially if the system is already customized and structured. It is important to have a policies and procedures manual as well. If an organization is new to Salesforce CMS, they should be prepared to spend money on training and possibly an outside consultant to help customize the system to their preference. This can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Incentivized

Submittable is great for grant management, grantmaking, and scholarship awards. It's a very useful tool also when there are multiple reviewers and committees involved in the assessment of the application. The table feature is helpful, but to download the information in a usable report is a pain. Overall a very useful tool for funding.

Incentivized

• NPSP is designed to help with donor management.
• There are free add-ons for volunteer management.
• There is a new Program Management Module to better manage program participation and attendance.
• Campaigns help organize and report on marketing efforts though we use a third-party solution to send out marketing materials.

Incentivized

• Easy to use! Resulting in confidence and independence when using platform.
• Exporting reports to Excel files makes internal data sharing a breeze.
• Tech support for grantees frees administrators from resolving issues on their own.
• Automatic and customizable communications with applicants and grantees.

Incentivized

• Not an easy lift right out of the box unless you completely rule out customization
• Not "free to own" even if the grant is free because you'll need about 0.25 FTE to maintain it
• Constantly being updated which is cool but many items are "forced" and you must respond
• Lots and lots of customization are required to equal many canned solutions available for any one particular feature set (but none of them can cover the breadth and flexibility of SF)

Incentivized

• It used to be easier to download submission files from the submissions screen; now, you have to run a report and request a download.
• Giving access to reviewers could be easier. It would be nice if we could create the email account and password and then give that to the reviewer. Right now, the invites are often junk, spam, or quarantine.

Incentivized

There is really no other tool to compare and especially since Salesforce for Nonprofits is free!!

Incentivized

Submittable is easy to use for our applicants, streamlines the grantmaking process and provides structures for a range of reviewers on our panels. i like that you continue to come up with new tools, although I wish many didn't come with additional costs.

Incentivized

Salesforce CMS is very intuitive and easy to use. I have not found where it glitches or crashes out. You can tell where data is "supposed to live" and it you aren't sure, there is an easy search function. Support is made readily available.

Incentivized

Submittable is very user-friendly. As both a application builder and an applicant myself I find the system intuitive and easy. Many pre-populated questions allow a grant administrator to build an application quickly. The start-up time we first joined as a Submittable client was fast, too. Submittable does not take much time for a first-time user to understand.

Incentivized

We have thankfully never experienced an outage nor been affected by a technology issue on Submittable's side that has delayed our grant process. We have instead been able to distribute over $6M in donated dollars to AAPI small business owners because Submittable is trustworthy and available

Incentivized

We've had a quick and efficient submittable experience that has always been easy to use. When we need a report it downloads within seconds, even the larger reports are 30 seconds or less to download. Pages are quick to load and reports complete in a more than reasonable time frame

Incentivized

I have never had bad conversations with any support people with Salesforce but we also have not used them very much. I put it a little less because we are struggling to switch to lightning (some of our custom features do not migrate well) and it feels like the help and support for a little organization is not incredibly helpful unless we want to spend a lot of money.

Incentivized

I think that they are good at answering our questions and solving our problems. We occasionally get reports from applicants about problems the Submittable team has not solved, but I do not know what the applicant has done to get the problem solved.

Incentivized

We have been using this for many years but my memory is that we had a
human walk us through how to use basic features. We also used the
resource library to learn about specific topics or issues as they came
up.

Incentivized

10/10 because we were able to meet virtually and still get all of our questions answered! Online was effective too because we could easily record the sessions and review them later. Since we had to onboard our reviewers virtually, it was actually convenient that this was the same method we learned how to use the entire program virtually too.

Incentivized

I would say, provide Submittable as much detailed information on your planned use of the platform and your desires with the platform as possible, and the implementation will be tailored to accommodate your organization with minimal lag time and issues/problems.

Incentivized

I’ve evaluated and used Raiser’s Edge NXT by Blackbaud, and in comparison, Salesforce is definitely getting there. It’s more advanced and more secure than Blackbaud, but Blackbaud still does certain things really well — they’ve been around for decades, so they’re kind of the OG. That said, from a technology standpoint, they’re still catching up to what Salesforce can do.

Incentivized

When we decided on Submittable: a) Most cost-effective: solution would cost under USD3,000 per year with no setup fee. b) We needed key features of this solution that were available out-of-the-box, e.g., Online Application Form -- including answers to approximately 20-30 questions, completing a financial income/expense summary spreadsheet, and submitting supporting docs in Word, PDF, or other common file formats. Also, applicants would get instant feedback if they do not qualify, so they won't even bother completing their submission. Backend workflow allows up to 8+ committee members/reviewers to review application submissions, submit and share comments/questions, approve/reject, grant amount recommendations, etc. Basic reporting will include lists of applicants and key data by submission year (e.g., contact details, funding requested, key metrics, etc.). Email alerts to reviewers as applications are submitted. Summary of completed application emailed to applicant upon submission so they have a copy for their records—the ability to centrally track any email exchanges with applicants.

Incentivized

We have been easily able to grow. Not only are we able to process different applications, but Submittable makes it easy to add applications onto our plan. Additionally, their eligibility form before the application does a good job of screening applicants so we do not pay for extra applications.

Incentivized

• Positive in terms of reputation and trust due to being able to demonstrate control and the safe handling of information with our funders.
• Negative in terms of financial ROI but this is mostly down to the impact of COVID-19 and the inability to hit the growth targets we expected when using the product over the contract term.
• Positive in terms of demonstrating the value of a true partnership between a non-profit and a commercial entity (salesforce.org) and seen as an exemplar of this.

Incentivized

• We were able to launch our first-ever community grants program on time, and received over 300 applications (we were anticipating ~50 in our first year out.)
• This has substantially improved our application and tracking capabilities for our employee relief fund grants, and ensured we are following IRS guidelines.

Incentivized