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Nonprofit App Advice and Reviews

This group is dedicated to discussing non-profit-focused, third-party Salesforce apps.
Leah Kopperman (Director, Data & CRM at Keshet)
Nov 15, 2019, 4:06 PM

ALTERNATIVES TO GRIDBUDDY?

 

Some of you already know that AppBuddy (the makers of GridBuddy) was acquired by Validity over the summer. For background, here's a link to @Michael Kolodner​'s post and discussion when that was announced. 

 

My org has used GridBuddy for many years. Half of my users have licenses and we have built a number of data updating processes using GridBuddy that are enormous time savers for our staff.

 

My GridBuddy licenses come up for renewal in February and I just found out that the amount we're going to be charged is almost 250 percent higher than what we had been paying. That's not a typo. We had been paying $120 per license/year and yesterday I was quoted $288 per license/year. For us (16 GridBuddy users) that means going from an annual bill of $1,920 to $4,608.

 

I'm sure I'll be able to negotiate something lower than that, but I'm also sure it's not going to be a reasonable price increase. I understand raising prices by 10, 20 or even 25 percent after an acquisition, but raising them 250 percent without any significant changes to the product? That's just pure greed.

 

Between the DemandTools acquisition and now the AppBuddy acquisition, Validity has shown itself to be the greediest company I have ever encountered.

 

GridBuddy is so built into our organizational processes I'm really not sure what to do.

 

Is anyone aware of any inline data editing tools that are similar to GridBuddy that are more reasonably priced? Has anyone moved off of GridBuddy to another product?

 

@Salesforce.org System Administrators​ @Karen Zelevinsky​ @Amy Cobb​ @Jodi Nemser-Abrahams​ @Donna Whitig​ @Anne Young​ 

powerofus.force.com

12 comments
Rachel Park Brayboy (Systems Administrator at Pledge 1 Percent) asked in Classy for Salesforce
Dec 24, 2025, 12:49 AM
Paypal and Classy?

Hi, everyone! PayPal is set up as a payment option in #Classy App with #NPSP, and I confirmed I can see this payment method on a donation page.  

 

However, when someone pays via Paypal, that data is not flowing into Salesforce similar to Stripe transactions. Are there additional settings or gotchas to be aware of? We also have GoFundMePay. Thank you!  

 

#PayPal Checkout Integration #Nonprofit #Nonprofit Success Pack #NPSP @Nonprofit Ask Me Anything (Global) @Nonprofit Success Pack @Nonprofit Hub @Nonprofit App Advice and Reviews

5 answers
  1. Rhonda Rundel (RK MissionForce)
    Dec 28, 2025, 6:22 PM
    I have found Classy’s documentation and customer support to be amazing, so I would put in a ticket request to them. They can definitely point you in the right direction.
Bernard Van Heuverswyn (Manager at Ask-It sprl) asked in #Nonprofit
Jan 18, 2022, 5:48 AM
Choosing Office 365 or Google Suite integration?

Hello everyone. I guess I might get different answers from you, because we all have our preferences between Microsoft and Google products. Nevertheless, I would like to have your sincere opinion taking into account the situation that I describe below. Our NGO started with Salesforce NPSP a little over a year ago. But using it only as a database to record donors and donations. 

I started there 8 months ago with the mission of transforming this database into a real CRM. We have a small team in Belgium (10), and many collaborators in Africa. At the beginning of this year, we should start the SF integration process with email products, calendars, etc. 

Although they initially opted for Office 365, this decision can be completely questioned. The important thing is that our collaborators start using SF in a natural way and that it becomes the tool they love (User adoption).

Like any NGO, our resources are quite limited because they are all invested in our missions in Africa. The majority of our employees use a screen, rather than a smartphone. With their emails, agenda, tasks in Office 365, and another tab with their SF access. Having SF integrated directly into their "Office" screen would be a positive revolution for them. With the ability to send emails from their email program, use their calendar, create tasks, but also create Leads, Opportunities, Contacts, etc. And to easily find Contacts/Account/Opportunity.. informations on the same screen (A column on the right of the screen). You will tell me that it is quite classic, and that both Microsoft and Google integration can meet these needs. The question I ask myself (I am a consultant and have various certifications such as Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, NPSP, Communities, B2B..) concerns the ease for us to achieve this integration and manage it internally without having to, in permanent, call on an external partner.  

- Microsoft or Google? - Easy integration that I could achieve.... or Paid package of Appexchange?  

In addition to what we have already talked about as a use, are there not advantages to using this or that product ? 

- Such as the possibility of sharing and working with several people, at the same time, on online documents? (tables, letters, etc.), 

- Have a whiteboard for our meetings, a tool to create internal technical or generic documentation (which is constantly evolving) that is NOT simple PDFs but real WIKIs/FAQs. .. Currently I use OneNote, but it's quite limited in layout while Wiki (MS) does not contain full text search...  

And finally, the price is important, and the ability to maintain this on our own.  

In your opinion, which solution should I turn to?  

Thank you for your advice, it will be very useful to me.

 

Bernard

4 answers
  1. Kazuya Mishima
    Oct 13, 11:46 AM

    Hi, 

     

    good question, and you'll get both sides arguing. I'm going to stick to what's relevant to your situation: small team, limited budget, no permanent partner, and adoption as the sole goal. 

     

    The Salesforce side is closer than it appears 

     

    Both platforms offer a 'Salesforce inside my inbox' type view - a pane showing contact/account/opportunity info for the emails you're opening, logging emails, and creating records from the mail window. Outlook has the Outlook integration, and Gmail the Gmail integration. Both can be set up per your admin's clicks and don't usually require a paid AppExchange package. Check your edition as it'll depend on your licences. Most people fall into the trap of thinking that one is easier, and find the real work comes in permissions, fields mapping and training, not on the connector. 

     

    A free method to test 

     

    Run both integrations in a sandbox with 3-5 users for two weeks (free trials for both platforms, sandbox for Salesforce). 

     

    Include at least a couple of your Africa-based collaborators. Connectivity and old PCs usually define adoption more than features do. 

     

    Test the daily flows: send and log an email, create a task, create a lead from the side panel, find a contact quickly. 

     

    Compare the admin work. Ask yourself who's going to maintain this when you're unavailable? 

     

    On the collaboration questions 

     

    Co-editing: Both can do real-time editing well, but Google Docs and Sheets feel quicker on a browser, which may be a consideration on poor bandwidths. The Office web apps are okay but desktop and web can be different beasts. 

     

    Whiteboard: Microsoft has it built in. Google's Jamboard is retired, so check if Google has any recommendations before relying on it. 

     

    Wiki/FAQ: Neither are very good out the box. On the Microsoft side, SharePoint pages or Loop are better options for evolving documentation than OneNote. On Google, Sites plus Docs (and Drive search) is simple and has good search. 

     

    Price: Both vendors have nonprofit programmes, and terms often change, so ask both for current eligibility and discounts. 

     

    Common mistakes people make 

     

    Picking on feature sets and not running a pilot, and adopting the wrong tool as a result. 

     

    Opening up email and calendar sync for everyone without thinking through what ends up in Salesforce. 

     

    Not taking shared mailboxes, calendar permissions, and aliases into account when switching platforms. 

     

    Switching MX records before mailboxes have been migrated so new mail ends up in the wrong place. 

     

    Cancelling the old licences before data has been verified and moved. 

     

    My honest opinion is that if your people spend their time in the browser, are distributed, and want something they can host themselves, Google will usually be the lighter option. If your team needs to use desktop Office apps, or has Microsoft grants, it's perfectly reasonable to stick where you are. Adoption beats feature lists either way. 

     

    If you do adopt Google, the

    Kernel Office 365 to Google Workspace

    Migration Tool can migrate mailboxes, calendars, contacts, and OneDrive in bulk with user mapping, and has a free trial where you can try a small batch first. 

     

    Hope that helps, and am happy to go deeper into the Outlook vs Gmail side-panel setup if it's useful.

Eli Wallack (Salesforce Administrator at The Trustees of Reservations)
Sep 26, 2024, 8:48 PM

Does anyone have a recommendation for an data archiving tool/company that you have liked and you think has fair pricing?  We are looking at both backup/restore and archiving.  I'm researching off this list, so very curious to hear about any experiences (good or bad), preferences, etc. especially from other folks using NPSP.  Thanks!

 

  • OwnBackup
  • CopyStorm
  • Spanning
  • CloudAlly
  • Odaseva
  • Backupify
  • GRAX
  • Cervello
  • DataArchiva
  • DBAmp
  • Sesame Software
  • sfApex
  • Skyvia
  • AutoRabit Vault
  • Commvault
  • AvePoint
5 comments
  1. Koen Remmerswaal (Hersenstichting)
    Oct 8, 9:21 AM

    We use Spanning Backup for this. 

    Are there any recommendations at the moment for this matter? 

    We are curious what people are using at the moment, and a price/quality estimation.

Mattie Vukmir asked in Nonprofit Success Pack
Feb 18, 2020, 8:33 PM
Formstack to Salesforce Field update issue

Hi all,

Wondering if anyone uses Formstack to/from Salesforce. We have a weird issue arising. We have a Youth consent form for parents to sign for youth taking classes. They need to sign this at least twice a year if they are taking additional classes in a different month. We have it set up to pull the data from the record into the form if they have completed it before - totally fine.

We did not have it set up previously to update the submitted date on the contact record. Now I have that box checked on JUST that field. The checkbox is "Update existing Salesforce record matching this field value:"

I haven't hit this button on any other field so that we don't have blanks erasing previously provided information.

We now have an issue popping up where the birthdate is then changed to blank when the new form is submitted. It is not a required field and I do not have the box checked to update the field upon resubmission. The weird thing is that when I see a record where the birthdate was removed, I go to the form submission and the birthdate is there pre-filled in the form.

Any thoughts? I'm hoping the checkbox update for just the date field isn't causing the issue here. I'm going to reach out to formstack support to, but wanted to check in and see if anyone has run into this issue before.

4 answers
  1. Harry Goyal (Data-Bridge)
    Sep 13, 1:17 PM

    We kept the form side separate and used Skyvia for the Salesforce update, with only the fields we actually wanted mapped for update. That gave us a lot more control than letting the form integration write back to the whole record.

Richard Marler (Head of Business Development at Time Technology)
May 22, 1:27 PM
Appointment Scheduling Tools

It has been a while since this has been asked, so I was hoping to get some up-to-date recommendations for appointment scheduling in Agentforce Nonprofit. We have a charity customer that provides therapeutic services to cancer patients, and they want the patients to be able to book appointments, get reminders, etc.  In Salesforce, they would want a shared calendar to see all therapists' appointments. Has anyone had experience with a solution that plays well with AFNP? Many thanks.

6 answers
  1. Richard Marler (Time Technology)
    May 26, 12:30 PM

    Thanks to all responders. @Willem de Jong would you DM me an email address I can contact you on? Where are you based? If you are willing to share here, it would also be great if you could publish non-profit pricing. 

Kai Williams
Jan 13, 2023, 6:25 PM
Cuseum or pass2u membership cards

Has anyone used either Cuseum or pass2u membership cards? We are thinking of moving to one of those for the ability to allow members to easily keep their cards in their virtual wallet. From what I've found I don't have the time/technical chops to easily get our pdf card into a virtual wallet.

 

I found a 2018 post that seemed positive about Cuseum so its where I'm leaning but their pricing is opaque and pass2u appears affordable.           @Julissa Favela @Alexandra Reddy

3 answers
  1. adhyan singh
    May 15, 12:30 PM

    We’ve been looking into this recently and MembershipAnywhere’s  Salesforce integration seems quite solid. It looks like it allows seamless syncing with CRM data, so members can get instant digital cards and updates directly from Salesforce without extra manual work.  The setup also appears fairly straightforward, and the integration is designed specifically for nonprofits and membership-based organizations, which is a big plus for us compared to more generic tools. 

Javi Diaz (MSF)
Mar 24, 2023, 3:27 PM
Zapier - Salesforce integration

We want to use Zapier to extract some data from our Salesforce org to Google drive.

It seems that the only way is using users credentials (user/passwd) and there is no way to filter by incoming IP...

 

Does anyone have the same problem?

It's a good idea to let any integration to connect to Salesforce without filtering incoming IPs and no other security credentials than user/passwd?

 

any ideas are welcomed.

 

thanks.

 

#Integration #Connections #Security

5 answers
  1. Jordan Sanders (Operational Excellence Group)
    Feb 19, 10:45 PM

    I wouldn’t be comfortable using just username/password either. In most cases you should be using OAuth with a dedicated integration user, not personal credentials, and definitely not bypassing IP controls without understanding the risk.  

      

    If IP restriction is a hard requirement, Zapier can be limiting since traffic comes from their infrastructure. In similar setups we either used a middleware that supports OAuth + more granular security control, or something like Skyvia where you connect via OAuth and don’t have to expose raw credentials. At minimum, create a dedicated integration user with least-privilege access and monitor API usage closely.

Greg Ley (Sr. Manager, Data Operations at The CAFE Group)
Nov 13, 2023, 2:42 PM
Apps that allow group SMS messaging?

Hello all, my nonprofit is evaluating SMS options since we do a lot of texting directly from phones to clients. We've looked at SMS Magic and Mogli so far, and both seem fine for the most part. What we are missing is the group messaging, which neither company can do. As far as I can tell, group messaging isn't possible with ANY texting solution. Does anyone have experience with tool that can do group messaging?

 

To be extra clear, I'm talking about MMS style messaging where (for example) a parent, their child, and us are all in the same text chain together. Not talking about bulk messaging, which both providers can do.

 

Many thanks in advance! #SMS

8 answers
  1. Jitendra Kumar (360 SMS App)
    Feb 14, 1:11 PM

    Great question! Group/MMS-style texting where all participants are in the same conversation is

    hard to find in typical SMS tools. Most tools focus on bulk or one-to-many messaging, not real chat threads.  

     

    If anyone is looking for a solution that brings true group messaging (similar to MMS) plus deep CRM integration, definitely check out 360 SMS App

    — it supports WhatsApp-style messaging inside Salesforce and makes managing conversations with multiple parties much easier.  

     

    For nonprofits especially, having that shared thread between staff + clients + families can be a game-changer for communication workflows.  

     

    For More Info:

    https://appexchange.salesforce.com/appxListingDetail?listingId=a0N3000000DpSyIEAV