Every year, Salesforce brings together thousands of administrators, developers, consultants, technology leaders, and organizations at Dreamforce to talk about what’s happening now, and what’s coming next, in the Salesforce ecosystem.
This year, two of Bearing Tree’s Salesforce Administrators were there to learn, ask questions, and, most importantly, determine what all of these announcements actually mean for the nonprofit organizations we support.
Because while three days of keynotes, breakout sessions, product announcements, and conversations can be exciting for Salesforce admins, we know most nonprofit leaders don’t have the time, or desire, to sort through all of it.
So, we went to Dreamforce so you didn’t have to.
Here are the top three things we think nonprofits should be paying attention to.
1. AI Is Only as Good as the Data Behind It
AI was everywhere at Dreamforce. But one of our biggest takeaways wasn’t actually about AI, it was about data quality.
Organizations are increasingly looking for ways to use AI to better understand their donors, summarize information, identify opportunities, and make their teams more efficient. But AI needs good information to work from.
If your Salesforce database contains duplicate Contacts, inconsistent fields, outdated information, incomplete donor histories, or data stored differently across your team, those problems don’t disappear when you add AI. Instead, they limit the quality of the insights AI can provide.
That makes the work nonprofits are already doing around data hygiene, consistent processes, integrations, and thoughtful Salesforce configuration even more important. The partner organizations we support utilize a Data Quality Dashboard that our team created and maintains to keep data hygiene top of mind.
The takeaway: Before asking, “How can we use AI?” make sure you can confidently answer, “Can we trust our data?”
A strong data foundation isn't the exciting part of an AI strategy, but it may be the most important one.
2. Claude + Salesforce Could Make AI More Accessible
One of the developments we're most excited to continue watching is the growing partnership between Salesforce and Anthropic, the company behind Claude.
The new Claudeforce partnership is designed to allow organizations to securely connect Claude with Salesforce data, workflows, permissions, and business logic. Salesforce's architecture includes zero-data-retention protections, meaning customer data sent to third-party language models under these arrangements isn't retained by the model provider after the interaction.
Why does Claudeforce matter for nonprofits?
Many organizations are interested in using AI to better understand and work with their Salesforce data but aren't ready to make a significant investment in Salesforce's full suite of native AI products.
The expanding Claude and Salesforce ecosystem creates another path worth watching. It could allow nonprofits to use tools they're already exploring while securely bringing more context from Salesforce into that work.
Imagine being able to ask questions about donor information, summarize giving histories, prepare for donor conversations, or identify trends without manually pulling together multiple reports first – or even logging into Salesforce.
There are still important considerations around permissions, governance, implementation, and which features are available, but the opportunity for nonprofits to begin thoughtfully experimenting with AI is growing.
Our partners will be hearing from us very soon on the option of connecting Claude accounts to Salesforce.
The takeaway: AI in Salesforce doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing decision. We're continuing to evaluate tools like Claude and Salesforce together so we can help our partners understand where they may provide practical value.
3. Thinking About Moving From NPSP? Don't Rush Discovery.
For nonprofits currently using Salesforce's Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP), the conversation around moving to Agentforce Nonprofit, formerly Nonprofit Cloud, continues to grow.
One of the most valuable sessions our team attended wasn't about Salesforce telling organizations why they should migrate. It was hearing directly from nonprofits that have already done it.
Their advice was clear: spend more time on discovery.
Moving from NPSP to Agentforce Nonprofit isn't simply flipping a switch or installing an update. It requires organizations to think carefully about how Salesforce is currently being used, which processes need to carry forward, what should change, and how users will work in the new environment.
Organizations that had completed migrations emphasized several lessons:
Invest in discovery. Take the time to document your current processes, data structure, integrations, automations, reporting needs, and pain points before determining what the future system should look like.
Plan for strong project management. A migration touches much more than your Salesforce Administrator. Clear ownership, timelines, decisions, testing, and communication all matter.
Get your team involved early. User buy-in is critical. The people who work in Salesforce every day should be part of the process, not introduced to the new system after decisions have already been made.
Consider a staged approach. Rather than trying to change everything at once, think carefully about how the transition can be broken into manageable phases.
And perhaps most importantly: give yourself time. Organizations that shared their migration experiences at Dreamforce described projects that took up to nine months or longer. A thoughtful transition is a significant project, not something most nonprofits should expect to complete in a few weeks.
We are working with partners who are interested in considering the migration. NPSP continues to be an option for organization not yet interested in the migration.
The takeaway: If Agentforce Nonprofit is on your organization's radar, now is the time to start the conversation, not necessarily the migration.
What This Means for You
The biggest theme we brought home from Dreamforce wasn't a particular product announcement. It was the importance of being intentional about what's next.
AI has tremendous potential, but it starts with reliable data. New integrations are making powerful tools more accessible, but nonprofits still need to think carefully about security, governance, and practical use cases. And Salesforce's nonprofit platform is evolving, but moving to something new should begin with understanding what your organization actually needs.
That's where our team comes in.
Part of our role as your Salesforce partner is to stay on top of these changes, evaluate what matters for nonprofits, and help you separate what's exciting from what's actually useful for your organization.
We'll keep going to Dreamforce, asking the questions, attending the sessions, and digging into what's next, so you don't have to.