What is Pro Bono?

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• Define the term “pro bono.”
  
• Identify ways a Pro Bono volunteer can help.
  
• Explain Salesforce’s model for pro bono success.
  
• Decide if you’re ready to host a volunteer.
  
• Identify alternatives when pro bono isn’t a good fit.
  

In this module, when we refer to customers, we’re referring to nonprofit and educational institution customers who are already using Salesforce to achieve their mission. Volunteers are skilled professionals who look to offer their services to a cause or program.

What Is Pro Bono?

pro bono: a Latin phrase for professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment

Let’s imagine a situation: You work for a nonprofit organization, and you’re handling a lot. You have limited resources, staff, and time. Maybe your IT department is, well, just you. You’ve invested in Salesforce as your CRM because it helps you do more with less. For organizations like yours, achieving what’s possible with Salesforce means improving more lives and doing more good. But you suspect that you’re not yet realizing the full potential of your CRM investment.

You want to take your organization's use of Salesforce to the next level, but how do you get there? 

You could do this yourself—there are webinars and Trailhead modules tailored to nonprofits and educational institutions. But what if you want someone to work closely with your team as a guide? Someone with expertise who can show you features you’re not yet using—and explain why you should use them. If that person can teach your team how to use the features, that’s even better. 

Or maybe you have a customization or project that would help your organization increase its impact, but you don’t have the time or know-how to tackle it. An expert can move that project from your wish list to the done category. They can amplify the power of your tech. 

If you have limited resources, it can be challenging to get the expert help that you need. Back we come to pro bono, and the kind of help that experts are willing to volunteer to you and your organization.

Power Your Mission with a Skilled Volunteer

Professionals more frequently want to offer their skills and knowledge to important causes. This is an opportunity for organizations like yours to scale operations, raise more funds, serve more people, and deliver even more impactful programs and services. The partnership with a skilled volunteer is the ultimate win-win: You get dedicated expertise, and volunteers get the satisfaction of contributing to an organization they believe in. We’ve seen this play out firsthand at Salesforce.

Every year, Salesforce employees log thousands of hours of pro bono work with our  nonprofit and education customers to help them use our products more effectively. We created the Pro Bono Program in 2014 to bridge the gap between the limited resources that nonprofits have and the pool of volunteer resources and expertise that is available to help them take full advantage of Salesforce technology. That commitment continues with the Impact Exchange, the evolution of our program and the home for pro bono volunteering at Salesforce.

So what happens when an enthusiastic, well-trained volunteer meets a cause or organization they believe in? Let’s take a look.

Create Positive Results with Pro Bono

Since its inception, our program has connected more than 3,000 nonprofits and educational institutions with Salesforce employees on short-term pro bono projects. We quickly learned the most successful projects have a few things in common:

• A clearly defined project scope with specific goals
  
• A manageable amount of work, ideally 20 hours or less
  
• A project that isn’t time-sensitive or mission-critical
  

Early on, we incorporated these learnings into our Pro Bono Program and now they serve as the foundation for Impact Exchange. By focusing on providing short-term support for projects that aren't time-sensitive or mission-critical, it has yielded some outstanding results.

Through the Pro Bono Program, customers have benefited from pro bono support in a variety of ways. With the introduction of the Impact Exchange, we’ve expanded project options and management to make the processes easier than ever but success still starts with project scope. Here are three real examples of how customers have made the most of their investment in Salesforce with help from a pro bono volunteer. 

Click a sample project to show more detail about the situation and the resolution that resulted from a volunteer’s involvement.

Is Pro Bono a good fit for my organization?

The most important thing to remember about working with skilled volunteers is the solid time commitment required from you and key stakeholders at your organization. Volunteers make an impact if you and your team set aside time to adequately support them. What do we mean by solid time commitment? This includes:

• Onboarding a volunteer to bring them up to speed on your organizational processes and share additional background on the problem you’re trying to solve.
  
• Scheduling time regularly to answer questions and provide feedback for the volunteer.
  

Be Honest with Yourself 

Is this a good time of year for you to fully engage in the project? If you think you might be stretched too thin to maintain regular communications, you might want to postpone this project until you have the availability to work with the volunteer.

Make the Most of the Time

If you decide to move forward with a volunteer, you’ll want to make the most of your time together. Make sure the volunteer not only shows you the progress they make but also how they make it so you can do it yourself next time. Taking ownership and ensuring you have the right stakeholder buy-in is crucial for the long-term success of your volunteer’s work after they’ve handed it off to you.   

Articulate Your Goals

Clarity of project scope is key to getting effective pro bono support. Before you engage a volunteer, be sure you can clearly articulate your goals and define what success looks like for you. It’s so important to know how to explain what areas you want to focus on—that way, you can take full advantage of a volunteer’s time. We cover more about scoping in the next unit, so stay with us for that. Sometimes, when you look closely at the scope of your potential projects, you might find this isn’t the time for a pro bono volunteer.

If Pro Bono Is Not for You

There are a few scenarios where you should think twice before engaging a volunteer. If you find yourself in any of these situations, we recommend hiring a Salesforce.org consulting partner or bringing on a part-time or full-time system administrator.

• Your organization is brand new to Salesforce and is just getting started.
  
• You need a system administrator to provide ongoing support to users.
  
• You need guaranteed support—‌for example, in advance of a major fundraiser or strategic initiative happening soon.
  
• You don’t have the bandwidth to manage a volunteer.
  
• You cannot clearly define the project scope with specific goals
  
• The scope of the project is too large with time commitment from a volunteer greater than 20 hours
  
• The project is time-sensitive or mission-critical
  

The Salesforce Partner Network has more than 230 partners that specialize in implementation of Salesforce for nonprofit and education programs. Many partners have starter packages and managed service support offerings. See the resources below to find a partner.

Self-awareness is critical, so be honest and open with your team and gauge if you're in a good place to initiate a pro bono project. In the next unit, we’ll cover some details on preparation for a volunteer’s arrival.

Resources

• Salesforce Website: Find a Consulting Partner
• Trailhead: Prepare for Success with Nonprofit Cloud
• Salesforce Website: Impact Exchange