Salesforce Power of Us
Summary
The Salesforce Power of Us program donates 10 free Salesforce Enterprise / Nonprofit Cloud licenses (~$15,000/yr in-kind value) to eligible nonprofit organisations, plus discounted pricing on additional licenses. Critically, Power of Us explicitly accepts 501(c)(4) social-welfare organisations in addition to 501(c)(3) public charities — making it one of the few major CRM/Fundraising programs where the eligibility language itself names 501(c)(4) as a qualifying status. For a 501(c)(4) advocacy org, this is the donor-side entry point into a serious CRM.
Body
https://www.salesforce.com/company/power-of-us/
The Power of Us Program provides discounted Salesforce technology to educational institutions and nonprofit organisations [source: salesforce-power-of-us]. An eligible organisation applies through the Power of Us portal at powerofus.salesforce.com with a US IRS determination letter (or tax document for the relevant country) — and the application explicitly lists “501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) IRS determination letter in the U.S.” as acceptable documentation [source: salesforce-power-of-us].
After approval, the organisation can log in to the Power of Us portal to view subscriptions and select its donated products — historically 10 free Enterprise / Nonprofit Cloud licenses worth ~$15,000/yr in-kind, plus discounted pricing on additional seats [source: salesforce-power-of-us]. Applications are reviewed within ~3 days; tax-exempt certificate upload (state/local where applicable) is part of the workflow [source: salesforce-power-of-us].
The Power of Us model is more permissive than TechSoup’s at the legal-form level: it accepts both 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) without requiring the TechSoup primary-purpose test to be passed [source: salesforce-power-of-us]. This makes it the natural CRM choice for US-registered advocacy and civic-engagement organisations that have a 501(c)(4) determination letter and need the donor-management / case-management capacity of a serious CRM. Salesforce also acquired Slack, and Slack’s separate “Slack for Nonprofits” program still operates independently — the wiki tracks that on its own page.
Use it for
Securing 10 free Salesforce Enterprise / Nonprofit Cloud licenses (~$15k/yr in-kind value) for a 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) US-registered nonprofit; understanding that Power of Us explicitly accepts 501(c)(4) — the answer is yes for advocacy orgs with a 501(c)(4) determination letter; planning donor management, case management, or organising workflows on the Salesforce platform.
Related
- civic-tech
- digital-security
- distributed-organizing
- framing-and-narrative
- petitions-and-e-campaigning
Learn more
- On Wikipedia: Salesforce — CC BY-SA 4.0