Generation Citizen Case Study - Salesforce Technology Implementation
The RFP Ask
Generation Citizen, a non-profit dedicated to transforming civics education so that young people are equipped and inspired to exercise their civic power, had a SalesForce problem.
They knew that Salesforce had the potential to make their development work more efficient and effective, but it had been feeling more like an encumbrance than a tool. Generation Citizen put out an RFP that we responded to with a proposal for a 3 phased approach:
Assess the situation
Design the new configuration
Implement and Rollout the new configuration to staff.
We’re glad they accepted the proposal, because this would become one of our most successful partnerships of 2022!
A 3 Phased Approach
The Assessment
We started by doing a series of deep dive conversations to try to understand how their Salesforce instance was currently configured, and how they wished it could be configured. In these conversations we learned that the current GC staff was working with a SalesForce configuration that they did not create. They inherited it from staff that had since departed from the organization, and over time things had gotten a little confusing.
We also uncovered that, as an organization with National reach, they had different circumstances and approaches to their development work in each region of the country. We knew that we needed to build something that would fit well in all of these different situations, while still coming together as a cohesive whole.
We used Lucid Spark to create a representation of how the team was managing development at the time - a combination of salesforce functions and spreadsheets maintained outside of Salesforce. (The image above represents JUST the lead qualification step, which is just 1 out of the 5 key stages in the development process).
The Architecture
Once the assessment was complete, we were able to start building out what their Salesforce instance would look like. Salesforce is a complex program, so it might honestly be a little boring to go into ALL of the nitty gritty here, but we can illustrate the work using a specific example.
We needed to create an in depth matrix of user profiles, which dictate the way that Salesforce presents the data to the user, and roles which dictate what data the user has access to. We used what we knew from the assessment to create the following table, which allowed everyone to see clearly what we were planning on building before actually building it.
One of the keys to success for GC’s new salesforce instance was to ensure that the donation page on their website was properly linked to both their Salesforce instance (to create the contact and the opportunity automatically) and their payment processing platform. We used lucid spark to show them how we could simplify and improve the process:
The Implementation and Training
By the time we got to phase III, everyone was on the same page and it was time to get our hands dirty. Everyone on the systems team pitched in to do all of the manual, intricate, and detailed configuration in the salesforce back end. Together, we were able to build a system that worked… finally!
Training is EVERYTHING, so we created a google site with a library for short, easy to watch training videos about Salesforce skills in general and details of the configuration unique to Generation Citizen. We had a blast! In the end the site contained over 50 custom created videos with accompanying text that can be easily searched by category and key words.
Happily Ever After… Cont.
Ongoing Partnership, Policy & Advocacy Assessment In Progress
In the end, this project yielded an enormous return including: 45 new reports and dashboards, 6 new workflow processes, and 50+ Training Videos. A great success!
With the success of the salesforce instance for development, Generation Citizen embarked on a continued partnership with us to build out Salesforce instances for their other departments. As of January 2023, we are in the midst of a similar 3 phase process to build another Salesforce app dedicated to the work GC does in Policy and Advocacy.
This partnership continues to be a source of growth on both sides and we are so excited to have been able to build a lasting relationship with such an impactful organization.
