A Seasonal Breakdown of Salesforce Updates Relevant to Nonprofits: Stay Ahead in 2025

Looking to leverage Salesforce updates for your nonprofit in 2025? This article offers a seasonal breakdown of Salesforce updates relevant to nonprofits. Discover new tools and features each season to boost fundraising, enhance donor engagement, and streamline grant management.

Key Takeaways

• The Spring ‘25 Nonprofit Cloud updates introduce automated fundraising tools, enhanced donor tracking, and AI-driven insights to improve efficiency for nonprofits.

• Summer ‘25 focuses on AI-powered tools for fundraising and volunteer management, streamlining automation in grant applications and improving operational workflows.

• Fall and Winter ‘25 updates enhance program and case management, including new automation features and donor engagement tools that empower nonprofits to maximize impact.

Spring '25 Nonprofit Cloud Updates

The Spring ‘25 Nonprofit Cloud updates bring renewal and growth, much like the season itself. This release notes focuses on enhancing tools for fundraising and donor engagement, introducing significant new features designed to meet the distinct needs of nonprofit organizations and the new nonprofit cloud. A notable addition is the gift entry grid, a user-friendly tool that streamlines the process of recording donations and managing complex gift types.

These updates streamline fundraising, enhance donor relations, and simplify grant management, saving time, improving accuracy, and enhancing flexibility for nonprofit organizations. With a new grantmaking solution released called Philanthropic Research, complete with an AI agent for enhanced research and reporting, nonprofit organizations can now access Salesforce tools tailored to their unique needs. The integration of Salesforce Data Cloud powers analytics, dashboards, and integrations—enabling seamless, data-driven decision making for nonprofits and enriching insights through tools like Tableau Einstein and Fundraising Intelligence.

These enhancements aim to boost productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness within the nonprofit sector through grantmaking enhancements.

Automated Outreach Source Codes

Outreach Source Codes revolutionize nonprofit fundraising by automating code creation for campaigns. This not only enhances accuracy but also significantly reduces the time spent on manual tasks associated with fundraising efforts.

Interest Tags and Bulk Source Codes offer the following functionalities:

• Interest Tags categorize outreach efforts, tailoring communications to specific donor interests.

• Bulk Source Codes functionality enables users to add multiple Outreach Source Codes to a campaign simultaneously.

• Users can customize columns for bulk entries when adding Source Codes.

• Organizations can create up to 200 Source Codes at once, streamlining outreach processes.

  
  

Enhanced Soft Credit Rollups

Spring ‘25 introduces soft credit rollups at the opportunity level, enhancing tracking of donor impact and contributions. This feature allows fundraisers to track soft credits linked to specific opportunities, clarifying donor impact and contributions.

Six new soft credit roll-ups offer gain deeper insights and relevant information into donor behavior, facilitating informed fundraising strategies for consulting firms.

Dynamic RFM Configuration

Dynamic RFM (recency, frequency, and monetary value) configuration represents a significant shift from past hard-coded RFM scoring. Now, nonprofit organizations can draw from customized data sources to better reflect donor behaviors in their scoring models.

This composite RFM score offers actionable insights, refining fundraising strategies and targeting the right donors at the right time.

Fundraising Intelligence with Tableau Einstein

The Fundraising Intelligence app with Tableau Einstein simplifies donor data analysis and improves fundraising decision-making. The app features a pre-built data model, a semantic layer, and three dashboard widgets for deeper donor data insights. These dashboards help nonprofit organizations quickly access essential information, making it easier to organize key data for more efficient decision-making.

This powerful toolset enables nonprofit organizations to leverage valuable data, enhancing fundraising and outcome measurement strategies with the nonprofit success pack.

Summer '25 Nonprofit Cloud Updates

As the summer sun shines brighter, so do the updates in the salesforce seasonal release within the Salesforce nonprofit ecosystem. The Summer ‘25 release focuses on upgrading tools across essential functions to boost efficiency, strengthen relationships, and increase nonprofit impact. These updates also support the broader nonprofit community by streamlining donation management and donor relationship building. Enhanced reporting, data analysis tools, and online form creation better equip nonprofits to handle their operations.

Personalized Trust Sites offer a tailored view of Salesforce service health with authenticated login, helping nonprofits maintain trust and transparency with stakeholders.

AI-Powered Fundraising Tools

AI-powered fundraising tools in the Summer ‘25 release optimize donor engagement and streamline donation processes. These AI tools automate donation tracking, simplifying fundraising management for nonprofits.

Generative AI allows nonprofits to create tailored fundraising proposals using donor data, reducing preparation time and enhancing campaign effectiveness.

Volunteer Management Enhancements

The updated volunteer management system in Summer ‘25 includes features for better tracking of volunteer hours, activities, and contributions. These enhancements are available as part of the Enterprise Edition of Nonprofit Cloud, providing powerful tools for optimizing volunteer engagement. The improvements support the overall management of volunteer initiatives and program management by enabling nonprofits to analyze volunteer engagement metrics efficiently.

Grant Making Automation

Grant making automation advances significantly with the Summer ‘25 release. Automated configurations for budget allocations, reporting requirements, and funding disbursements streamline grant making, reducing manual effort. Grants management stage management functionality defines business process stages and automates pre- and post-award tasks, enhancing efficiency, including the funding award process.

The batch assign reviews feature allows grant managers to assign applications to one or multiple reviewers, ensuring a comprehensive and efficient review process. Related records are efficiently managed and shared within automated flows, streamlining the grant review process and improving the user experience.

Fall '25 Nonprofit Cloud Updates

As the leaves change color, Fall ‘25 Nonprofit Cloud updates enhance program and case management. Updates like personalized one-off goals for clients and the ability to clone care plan templates save time and reduce errors for case managers and help maintain compliance with regulatory standards. Additionally, the new features in nonprofit cloud case management streamline processes and improve efficiency. New tools also streamline program enrollment by automating participant registration, setting default status, and managing stages to further support organizational workflows and maintain compliance.

AI agents from the new Agentforce platform assist case managers with administrative tasks, enhancing service delivery efficiency. New Gift Commitment features allow users to see projected revenue over various time frames, aiding donor relations.

The reporting and review process is improved with the ability to submit and manage progress reports using digital tools, making it easier to track updates on grant activities and maintain compliance.

Program & Case Management Improvements

New automation features in program and case management offer the following benefits for nonprofits:

• Simplify budget oversight

• Enhance reporting workflow

• Enable smoother tracking of service delivery

• Improve case management

• Implement a program management model

Additionally, new features allow users to manage and track multiple indicator results within a unified interface, simplifying data entry and enhancing performance measurement.

These enhancements ensure compliance organizations can manage progress without data loss.

New AI capabilities, such as generating summaries of program performance and donor engagement, simplify reporting and reviews, helping nonprofits stay on top of their operations with new functionality.

Gift Entry Custom Fields

Custom fields in gift entry enable organizations to capture specific donor data entry, such as preferred communication methods and gift purposes. This feature gathers pertinent information, facilitating a personalized approach to donor engagement and strengthening donor connections.

Generative AI Beta Features

Generative AI beta new feature in the Fall ‘25 release enhance efficiency in program management and grantmaking activities. These tools offer program summaries and grantmaking insights within Nonprofit Cloud workflows, improving grant management and program tracking.

Winter '25 Nonprofit Cloud Updates

As the year ends, Winter ‘25 Nonprofit Cloud updates introduce powerful tools to enhance operations and streamline processes for nonprofits. This release offers new features and enhancements for fundraising, marketing, program management, and grantmaking, helping nonprofits maximize their impact.

With more consulting firms and organizations implementing NPC, there is notable growth in NPC projects. However, many recognize that implementing NPC can be more complex than NPSP, leading nonprofits and consultants to carefully consider their strategic options. NPSP has been a mature and trusted solution for over a decade, providing a strong foundation as the sector transitions to NPC and evaluates future developments.

Flow-based forms for simpler grant applications enable nonprofits to manage grant processes more efficiently. Specific rollout dates for the Winter ‘25 release will be available 3-4 weeks before its launch, helping organizations prepare for these updates.

Donor Briefs and Address Management

Customizable templates for donor briefs in the Winter ‘25 release enable nonprofits to include various aspects of donor profiles, such as demographics and engagement history. The address synchronization feature simplifies donor address management, ensuring accurate donor profiles. These new address management features are currently available for Person Accounts, allowing nonprofits to track primary and undeliverable addresses for individual constituents. Before enabling address management features, it is necessary to clone and activate a record triggered flow to automate address updates and ensure data consistency.

Generated donor briefs are stored in the Notes & Attachments list, streamlining donor information management.

Gift Commitment Enhancements

The Gift Default Soft Credit object in the Winter ‘25 release allows users to add soft credit records directly to Gift Commitments. This improves the visibility of influencers in donations, strengthening donor relationships.

Rollup fields in Gift Commitment records, Donor Giving Summary, and Outreach Summary provide enhanced insights, increasing transparency and collaboration in understanding donor influence. Gift transaction tracking is now integrated with these features, streamlining donor acknowledgment processes and reporting for more efficient fundraising operations.

Bulk Acknowledgement Letters

Bulk acknowledgment letter enhancements in the Winter ‘25 release offer the following benefits for nonprofits:

• Simplify report list creation

• Facilitate donor data management

• Allow users to generate a report list when working on acknowledgment letters

• Enable updating of tax receipt statuses during the acknowledgment letter process

These features ensure accurate and efficient processes, and allow users to efficiently manage pledges and pledge updates during the acknowledgment letter process, saving time and reducing manual effort.

This functionality facilitates easier mail merge and acknowledgment letter generation, streamlining donor communications.

Additional Tools and Resources for Nonprofits

Salesforce offers a variety of tools and resources tailored for nonprofits to effectively utilize its Salesforce platform in 2025, including the Salesforce nonprofit cloud and the salesforce ecosystem. These resources help nonprofits maximize Salesforce usage, enhancing operational efficiency and impact.

From provider management to approval process functionality and support and training resources, nonprofits have a comprehensive suite of tools to support nonprofits’ mission. Salesforce tools now also support logging and issuing benefit disbursements within client profiles, streamlining aid delivery and enhancing operational efficiency.

Provider Management

Provider Management introduced in 2025 enhances network management by allowing users to build and monitor a network of third-party providers and services. Configuring the Provider Management tool requires time and expertise to ensure it’s set up correctly for compliance and operational efficiency.

Approval Process Functionality

Nonprofit Cloud now supports enhanced approval workflows spanning multiple objects, facilitating a more efficient approval process. Customizable approval workflows streamline decision-making across organizational processes, improving workflow management within the nonprofit sector.

Support and Training Resources

Salesforce offers guided learning through Trailhead, keeping nonprofits updated on industry trends and maximizing Salesforce tool usage. Nonprofits can access training materials and support through Salesforce’s Trailhead platform, optimizing tool usage and enhancing operational capabilities.

Summary

As we reflect on the seasonal updates to Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud in 2025, it’s evident that these enhancements are designed to empower nonprofit organizations. From automated outreach tools to AI-powered fundraising and program management improvements, Salesforce continues to deliver powerful solutions to support nonprofits in their mission. By staying informed and leveraging these updates, nonprofit organizations can enhance their efficiency, strengthen donor relationships, and maximize their impact. Embrace these innovations and let them guide your organization to new heights in 2025 and beyond.

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is the focus of the Spring '25 Nonprofit Cloud updates?

  The Spring '25 Nonprofit Cloud updates emphasize improving fundraising and donor engagement tools while streamlining processes. Notable features include the introduction of Philanthropic Research to enhance donor research and reporting capabilities.

  
  

• How do the AI-powered fundraising tools in the Summer '25 release benefit nonprofits?

  The AI-powered fundraising tools in the Summer '25 release significantly enhance nonprofit operations by automating donation tracking and creating personalized fundraising proposals. This results in improved donor engagement and increased efficiency in fundraising efforts.

  
  

• What improvements have been made in volunteer management with the Summer '25 release?

  The Summer '25 release has enhanced volunteer management by introducing features for improved tracking of volunteer activities and contributions, enabling nonprofits to analyze volunteer engagement metrics more efficiently. This advancement ultimately supports more effective volunteer coordination and resource allocation.

  
  

• What are the benefits of the new generative AI beta features introduced in the Fall '25 release?

  The new generative AI beta features significantly improve program management and grantmaking in the Nonprofit Cloud by offering program summaries and insights, thereby streamlining grant management and enhancing program tracking. This leads to more efficient operations and informed decision-making.

  
  

• How do the Winter '25 updates improve donor brief and address management?

  The Winter '25 updates enhance donor brief and address management by introducing customizable templates for donor briefs and new address synchronization features, ultimately streamlining donor profile management and ensuring data accuracy.