Hey Sadaf,
Great starting point, here's the practical path for a charity:
1. Check eligibility and apply for the Power of Us Program: eligible 501(c)(3)/nonprofit organizations get 10 free Enterprise Edition user licenses. You'll need proof of nonprofit status (like your IRS determination letter or country equivalent). Approval typically takes a couple of weeks, you can start a 30-day free trial in the meantime.
2. Choose your product path: two real options exist today, Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP), the free, long-standing managed package built on top of standard Salesforce (donor/donation/campaign tracking, Household/Contact model), still supported but no longer getting new features, or Nonprofit Cloud, Salesforce's newer purpose-built product with native AI (Agentforce) and built-in grant/program/volunteer management, this is where active development is happening now.
3. Learn the fundamentals on Trailhead before committing to configuration, look for the "Explore Nonprofit Success Pack" or Nonprofit Cloud trails, they'll walk through the donor/household data model so you understand the structure before loading real data.
4. Decide if you need a partner: for straightforward setup (small team, standard donor tracking), you may be fine self-configuring using Trailhead. If you're migrating existing donor data from spreadsheets or another CRM, need grant reporting structured per funder, or want integrations (payment processors, email tools), a certified Salesforce nonprofit consultant is usually worth it, often at discounted nonprofit rates through partners in the ecosystem.
Given you're just starting out, I'd apply for Power of Us first (that's your biggest cost saver), and use the 30-day trial period to explore Trailhead modules while waiting on approval.
Reference:
https://www.salesforce.org/power-of-us/
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