Michelle Northrup
“Every time we need something changed, or we need to add something on, or we change a process, it’s not that big a deal.”
Like many in the nonprofit world, Michelle Northrup has a lot on her plate. As Director of Operations at Benzie Area Christian Neighbors (BACN), she’s part of a staff of four. Three have defined roles, and Michelle does “everything else” – including Salesforce administration.
The mission of BACN has grown over the years, along with the number of volunteers. BACN now runs a clothing center, GED program, food pantry, and other services to the community.
When Michelle started at BACN nine years ago, the organization had an existing Microsoft Access database, but it was problematic in many ways. The move to Salesforce for Nonprofits in 2016 was largely Michelle’s suggestion. She had done an Americorps Vista project with the Rotary of Traverse City, so she knew how a nonprofit can use Salesforce. And perhaps just as important, she knew of the support available in northwest Michigan for nonprofits that use Salesforce.
Michelle expresses deep appreciation for the people she’s met through Salesforce, as much as the power of the tool. Primarily she appreciates the process BACN used to build their Salesforce instance and the ongoing support of the local user group.
By beginning with a hands on approach, BACN was able to build their database with Sherpa Ashima’s assistance. Because of that, now “if something needs to happen – I can do it. I know what’s happening in there because I’m the one who did it…I didn’t have to go out and learn the system, because I was learning it as we built the system, and that was really helpful.”
She concedes that BACN’s instance could look more sophisticated, with pop-ups and other glitz. But as it stands, “every time we need something changed, or we need to add something on, or we change a process, it’s not that big a deal.”
Michelle also appreciates the wonderful support of Salesforce Trailblazer Community groups in northwest Michigan – the Traverse City and Michigan Nonprofit user groups. Every other month, the Traverse City group has working meetings, where members can sign up to have someone help with a specific task: formula field, workflow rule or process builder, building a report, etc.
BACN needed to add a complicated formula for determining whether people qualify for services, and Michelle spent one productive meeting getting help to set it up. In the future, when the federal poverty level changes (as it does every year), she will easily be able to update the formula herself.
Michelle takes great satisfaction in learning the back end of the database and how it works. Through the implementation process, she learned a little bit of patience, and when to ask for help. Michelle has also been able to attend weekly workshops to improve her skills in Salesforce, through a grant from the Willoughby Foundation of the nearby Rotary Club of Frankfort. She has been rewarded with a better understanding of how Salesforce works because she had never worked in that level of database management. And she was surprised to learn that she really liked it.
She hopes to one day resume her Salesforce Administrator training, shelved for now as a capital campaign for a new building is taking precedence. And she plans to become a Salesforce Administrator. Her hope is that “maybe someday I could step up and help other nonprofits.”