Not-for-Profit Navigator
With Nicole Aebi-Moyo - SalesFix For Purpose Practice Lead
Welcome to this month’s edition of the Not-For-Profit Navigator where we share all the exciting news about True Blue Blazing, and explain why the “Salesforce Community” is still so important.
True Blue Blazing Melbourne 2025
What’s that then? All around the world, there are community-led Salesforce events: user groups; conferences; meetups; and more. These events focus on networking and learning and bring together large groups of Salesforce professionals and users.
And that’s what True Blue Blazing is: an opportunity for hundreds of Salesforce people to come together to share their knowledge, ask questions and learn. If you “do” Salesforce, if you use Salesforce, if Salesforce features in your life in any way, True Blue Blazing is for you. Heck, even my wife is coming!
14 November, Marvel Stadium
True Blue Blazing
A community-led Salesforce event, bringing people together for learning and networking. Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 09:15 am (Registration) - 5:00 pm Marvel Stadium, 740 Bourke Street, Docklands, Victoria, AU, 3008
True Blue Blazing Melbourne grew out of an innocent little LinkedIn Post I made after World Tour in Sydney earlier this year. Spurred on by the “vibe” and energy, I asked “Does anyone want to organise an event in Melbourne this year?”
What was I thinking!
What you can expect?
There are over 30 sessions in four separate breakout areas. It doesn’t matter if you’re an administrator, marketeer, platform owner, end user, or all of the above, there’s a session for you. And we have a great range of speakers from some well known regulars (like Karen Hendrickx, Carl Vescovi, Glenda Birch and Wyan Carter) to those for whom this will be their first go at a “big” conference.
The day kicks off with a Welcome to Country and a keynote from Mo Ravi who works for Hato Hone St John in New Zealand. Mo will share how he’s leading a 5 year digital transformation project that spans fundraising, community health, education and commercial products.
Some of the sessions you might not be expecting to see are:
- Jennifer Cains who’ll be running a workshop on identifying burnout in yourself and others….and what to do about it.
- Mark Barcham who’s covering why accessibility in design is important for everyone.
- And I’ll be joining Wyan Carter, Jessica Macpherson and Lauren Stewart as we bare all and share some of our biggest project failures ever.
We have to talk about AI as well though, right? There’s a panel on Responsible AI; a workshop on Getting AI Ready; and using AI as a business analyst.
I can’t mention every session of course, but some of the ones I’m really excited about are:
- David Aitken’s session on Salesforce in the For Purpose sector
- Balanced Effect’s session on migrating to Nonprofit Cloud (now Agentforce for Nonprofits)
- And Dan Godden’s session on driving adoption.
The day isn’t just about the sessions though. We’ve got an amazing venue that has allowed us to have the space for a Learning Zone. This is where you’ll bump into a range of experts ready for you to “Ask Them Anything”. There’ll be space to network, sit down and have a deep and meaningful conversation with the speaker you’ve just watched, build connections and generally have a good old chat.
And thanks to some wonderful sponsors, the Learning Zone will have a coffee cart, churro cart and ice cream stall to keep you happy!
Massive Shout Out to Our Sponsor
We really couldn’t do this without some amazing sponsors. The costs of putting on an event like this are not insignificant and the cost of the ticket doesn’t even come close to the total cost of the event.
I’d particularly like to thank three of those that jumped on early to give us the confidence to say “yes, we’re going to do this”!
Jessica Macpherson from Blaze Your Trail pledged a lot of money from day one. She didn’t need convincing, didn’t need a sponsorship prospectus, wasn’t even that fussed about the contract.
Lauren Stewart from Balanced Effect was the same. “Yes, of course we’re in” were her words as we chatted over coffee.
Finally SalesFix. Without hesitation, Jason Lawrence said yes to many things (some of which I didn’t even ask for!). He said yes to underwriting the event; yes to offering up staff time to process invoices and contracts and payments and all the general admin; and yes to me dedicating a fair amount of time to the event. (I’ve done my best to keep it out of working hours, honest!)
Without these three key sponsors, this event would not have been possible. Within a short period of time, we had verbal commitments from a range of people and it was full steam ahead.
Massive Shout Out to Our Sponsor
Did I mention this was a community-led event? That means every single person helping to put this event together is a volunteer. And there’s been a dedicated core of volunteers from day one that deserve a massive shout-out (in no particular order):
- Emma Winkworth who has led the charge with amazing LinkedIn posts and some clever graphics.
- Andi Morton who bought our domain name and got the website up and running in the middle of one of our fortnightly meetings.
- Josephine Ferguson who, despite fracturing her ankle, coordinated the show bags and volunteers.
- Jennifer Monika who worked with Josephine to source some amazing swag.
- Karel Schuller tot Peursum who has visited venues, helped coordinate speakers and will be hosting the DemoJam
Several people have said “….for the next one…” suggesting that we might do this again. I think we’re a little too close to the due date for us to be contemplating that, but should anyone be interested in taking on the fun of coordinating the next one, do let me know!
Salesforce Community: still a thing
I’ve been in the Salesforce world since 2008. I remember the day Salesforce (literally) walked into my life (it was February 12, 2008) and I am forever grateful for the opportunities I have been afforded because I chose to change my career and picked a platform from a company that had vision and values that I could align to.
Nearly 20 years later, that alignment has been tested. And that is to be expected, let’s be honest. Priorities change, needs and wants fluctuate, external pressures make us wobble.
But what has always stayed true is the vibe of the Salesforce community. And if the last few months has taught me anything, it’s that the Salesforce Vibe is still alive and kicking. And that gives me hope!
Why the name change?
I don’t like elephants in the room so I want to address something some will be asking: why isn’t this a “Dreamin’” event? Typically, these community-led conferences go under the banner of Dreamin’ events. Indeed, a large Down Under Dreaming event was held in Melbourne in 2019 and it was a great success. And there’s an incredible team up in Brisbane who have put on smaller Dreamin’ events in 2024 AND 2025.
But the world has changed a bit and the organising committee questioned whether the use of the word Dreamin made sense in Australia. We spent some time thinking about it and canvassing opinion from those in the eco-system, customers, other partners, anyone who even vaguely knew what Salesforce was.
The argument for keeping the name was that it had an established brand that would be helpful for marketing and other purposes. The argument for changing the name was that the use of the word “dreaming” in Australia could be confusing.
Were we right to change the name? Who knows. And it doesn’t really matter, what matters is that we had the conversation respectfully and we made a collective choice.
We don’t “own” the brand, we don’t “own” this event. We are simply organising this year’s event. And we hope you enjoy it!
If you would like to have a chat with me about the upcoming event, feel free to reach out I am always happy to help: [email protected]
Until next time,
Nicole
Useful Resources
Join our Fundraising Community of Practice: meeting virtually once a month to discuss all things fundraising and tech. Email [email protected] to join.
Upcoming Events to Attend
- If you’re in Melbourne, buy a ticket for True Blue Blazing Melbourne, 14 November, Marvel Stadium. This all day conference will bring together Salesforce users from all walks of life to share learnings, ideas and best practice guidelines.
- The morning of True Blue Blazing brings us the Brains Trust Breakfast event with SalesFix. Come learn about Salesforce practices from 4 experts in their fields.
- Attend one of F&P’s fundraising events to keep up to date with trends.
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.