Not-for-Profit Navigator
With Nicole Aebi-Moyo - SalesFix For Purpose Practice Lead
Home ownership rates in Switzerland are relatively low for a wealthy country (hovering around 40%) whereas they typically sit at around 70% in Australia. There are many economic reasons for this, which I won’t go into here, but I am going to try to draw an analogy between home ownership and technology choices in this month’s Not-for-profit Navigator.
Work with me on this one!
Home Choices and Tech Choices
You can choose to own or rent your home (assuming you’re lucky enough to have somewhere you can call home: see the amazing work of We Are Mobilise, StreetSmart and The Big Issue (happy 30th birthday) to see how you can support those that aren’t so lucky).
There’s a similar choice for technology: you can implement a platform (to support multiple business teams and processes) or you can implement a point solution (to support just one). It’s very rare, these days, to see organisations using solutions that they’ve built from scratch and there are good reasons for that.
I think owning your home is analogous to implementing a platform, and renting is analogous to implementing a point solution. Here’s why.
Make it your own
There are few landlords who would be happy for renters to renovate or make substantive changes to their properties. You might be able to hang some art or maybe paint a wall (with permission!) but not a lot else. Even if you live there for decades, the place still isn’t yours.
But you also don’t have the responsibility and cost of maintaining and improving where you live. If something breaks, you can ask your landlord to fix it. If they decide to repaint the place, they can.
Some people prefer that lack of responsibility and financial obligation.
When you own the place where you live, you have complete control of your environment. If you want to pull down a wall, replace the kitchen, redo the garden, you can. But at your own cost of course!
Some people prefer to have this control, even though it can cost more.
With a point solution, you’re in the same boat as renters: you can probably add the odd field or two; change a page layout; maybe add some process automation; but anything more substantial and you’ve got a problem. You can ask, but if the change doesn’t benefit others, or if the tech team doesn’t want to make that change, you won’t get what you need and you’ll need to live in your point solution as it is. You’re at the mercy of those that built the platform in the first place.
With a platform, you have more control. You can change whatever you like: you can add as many processes as you like; change the page layouts; even change the data architecture (within certain parameters). And for a platform like Salesforce, you get the added bonus of getting upgrades as well!
Case Study
An organisation I was talking to recently, implemented a grant management solution a few years ago to automate their processes and reduce their admin overhead. They chose to go with a point solution because the initial investment was lower. They were assured that their somewhat complex and individual needs could be met by the solution, but along the implementation journey, they discovered limitation after limitation. Too often the response to the question “can we change that?” was met by “no, that’s part of the core architecture”. So they developed work arounds, complex ones resulting in even more convoluted processes and time consuming work than before.
Return on Investment
When you buy a home in Australia, you can expect to see the value double in a decade (or so) because of the demand for housing. In Switzerland this isn’t the case: my dad’s apartment that he bought about 7 years before he died was sold for the same price he paid for it. The demand isn’t there to push up the price.
But we don’t just make changes to the places we live in order to see an ROI when we sell: we also make changes because they look good, make our lives easier, or stop the place falling down! We see an ROI whilst we live there.
Some long-term renters will make an investment in their homes. They’ll work on the garden, for example, but they’ll rarely make substantive changes because they know they’ll see no ROI when they leave and because they know they may be on the hook to return the property to its original state. They invest to a limited extent because they want to experience that ROI at the time.
When you implement a platform you should plan on investing in ongoing improvements, not because you want to see an ROI when you sell the platform, but because of that ongoing ROI. And the ROI for technology is immediate and apparent, improving revenue generation and/or driving efficiency.
Case Study
We implemented Salesforce for a disability advocacy and legal advice organisation a while ago. They were considering a point solution but could see the value of a platform and so chose Salesforce. Since going live, they have continued to invest in small, incremental changes that they can determine and own and are seeing a constant ROI month on month. Their users are engaged with the solution that continues to meet their needs even as their internal processes change and adapt to the changing world around them.
But I don't want to build from scratch!
Fair enough. Not many homeowners started by building their own home. We’re typically more than happy to step into something already built to then make it our own.
And that’s where Salesforce and CaseMate come in. Salesforce is like a block of land with some great foundations already built. There’s even four walls and some plumbing. The electrics have been put in but there’s still the option to add more sockets. And you can customise the kitchen and bathroom to suit your needs. With Agentforce Nonprofit, there’s even some pre-built recipes programmed into the oven that you can use (or adapt to suit your palette).
CaseMate enhances Salesforce even further. It adds features and functions specific to organisations that work with clients, like Consent Management; Risk Assessments; Reporting to Funders; and more.
If you’d like to find out more about how CaseMate and Agenforce Nonprofit can support the clients you work with, do reach out!
If you need any assistance understanding anything in this edition of NFP Navigator please reach out at [email protected], I am always happy to help.
Until next time,
Nicole
Useful Resources
Some great resources from the Institute of Community Directors:
Coming Up in 2026
- Kiwi Dreaming: 23 July, Auckland. Why not head over and see what they’re doing across the water?
- True Blue Blazing: 20 October 2026. Marvel Stadium. Tickets go on sale soon.
Australian Salesforce user groups
If you use Salesforce and you’re not part of a user group, you’re missing out! There’s over 30 groups in Australia and New Zealand alone, and many now meet online so there’s no excuse for not joining in and finding out more.