Tides Center Builds Custom Grant Tracking, Contract Management and Financial Operations Applications Using the Force.com Platfor
August 04 2008 - 8:00AM
PR Newswire (US)
Salesforce.com's 1% product donation program helps innovative
nonprofit transform its organization to better serve others SAN
FRANCISCO, Aug. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- The Salesforce.com Foundation,
the global leader in integrating philanthropy and business, today
announced that Tides Center, a sector-leading nonprofit that
provides back-office services to over 200 socially innovative
projects across the country, has completely transformed its
business using donated and discounted licenses of Salesforce CRM
and Force.com as part of salesforce.com's 1% Product Donation
Program. Using the Force.com Platform-as-a-Service, Tides Center
built a set of custom, Software-as-a-Service applications to
improve services to its projects by streamlining processes,
reducing redundancies, eliminating paperwork, and minimizing data
entry error. Salesforce.com partner CASA Customer Solutions helped
design and deploy the Force.com applications for Tides Center.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050216/SFW105LOGO)
"With projects across the country and around the globe, we operate
with a unique set of business challenges; and, as a nonprofit, we
have tight budgets and limited IT resources. We wanted a way to
drastically improve our services to our projects and create a
replicable model for the nonprofit sector without investing in
implementing and maintaining a bunch of software applications,"
said Ellen Friedman, Executive Vice President of Tides.
"Salesforce.com gave us exactly what we needed -- a cost-effective
way to create a completely customized solution for our unique
model." Tides Center used Force.com to design and deploy a custom
portal for potential new projects to initiate, manage and submit
applications. The portal is integrated directly with Salesforce
CRM, so staff has a complete view into the pipeline of new project
applications in process as well as those that have been submitted
for review. This insight helps Tides Center manage the application
review and tracking process more effectively, and also keep
applicants informed along the way. Vendor contract management was
another area Tides Center addressed with its Force.com deployment.
The organization wanted to eliminate the myriad of emails, faxes
and paper involved in managing vendor contracts for over 200
projects. With Force.com, Tides Center created a fully automated
workflow and approval mechanism that significantly streamlined
contract approvals and kept all relevant contract information in a
single, central location. Full integration of Tides Center's
accounting system with the Force.com platform is expected to give
staff and projects direct access to real-time financial information
as well as more timely, accurate, and customizable financial
reports. The full deployment is expected to enhance the projects'
visibility into the management of their financial resources.
"Force.com has been a tremendous asset. We have been able to create
our own applications, extend the value of our Salesforce CRM
deployment, and easily add additional features from AppExchange
that helped with our marketing efforts," said Tom Shaffer, Tides
Center's CRM Program Director. "Looking to the future, we know we
have the right platform in place to support our organization as our
needs grow and change." About the Salesforce.com Product Donation
Program The salesforce.com 1% Product Donation Program is a key
component of salesforce.com's 1/1/1 Model where 1% Time, 1% Equity,
1% Product are given to nonprofits around the world to help them
better serve their social missions. The 1% Product Donation Program
provides qualified nonprofits with unprecedented access to state of
the art, enterprise-class technology to fuel innovation in their
organizations. Today, more than 4,000 nonprofits are using
Salesforce to manage a wide range of organizational needs including
managing constituent relationships, fundraising campaigns,
volunteers, program delivery, and much more. Salesforce.com donates
10 licenses to qualified nonprofits. Additional licenses are
offered at an 80 percent discount. For more information on this
program, please visit http://www.salesforcefoundation.org/product.
Developers interested in creating applications for nonprofits can
get started for free by joining the Salesforce Developer Network
http://www.salesforce.com/developer/, which provides instant access
to software development tools and information on how to develop on
the Salesforce platform. About the Force.com Platform and
AppExchange The Force.com platform (http://www.force.com/)
reinvents the traditional development, deployment and distribution
of any business application. Developers, customers and partners can
use Force.com to easily create and deliver a new generation of
Software-as-a-Service applications. Force.com allows applications
to be easily shared, exchanged and installed with a few simple
clicks via the Force.com AppExchange marketplace, enabling all the
innovation that Force.com unleashes to be easily distributed to the
entire Software-as-a-Service community. The Force.com AppExchange
economy continues to expand, with thousands of customers installing
applications via the AppExchange. Customers of all sizes can
quickly and easily extend Salesforce with additional
Software-as-a-Service business applications available on the
Force.com AppExchange, found at
http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/. About Tides Tides partners
with philanthropists, activists, foundations, and organizations to
promote economic justice, a robust democracy, and the opportunity
to live in a healthy and sustainable environment where human rights
are preserved and protected. Tides Foundation, Tides Center and
Tides Shared Spaces have collaborated with over 15,000 individuals
and organizations that have touched millions of lives across the
country and around the globe. Founded in 1976, and with offices in
San Francisco and New York City, Tides provides fiscal sponsorship
to over 200 groups across the country, operates and supports green
nonprofit centers and has granted more than $550 million since 2000
alone. For more information, visit http://www.tides.org/. About the
Salesforce.com Foundation The Salesforce.com Foundation is the
leader in pioneering, evangelizing and implementing the 1/1/1 Model
to improve the lives of people around the world. The 1/1/1 Model
harnesses the power of people and technology through 1% Time, 1%
Equity, 1% Product to build deep relationships with communities
around the world and increase the effectiveness of nonprofit
organizations in achieving their goals. The Foundation concentrates
on the use of technology, specifically as it relates to
organizations with youth development programs. It has supported
technology projects around the world that help kids in bereft urban
and rural areas access technology to create better futures for
themselves. The 1/1/1 Model has had a profound effect on
salesforce.com and its communities: Since July of 2000,
salesforce.com employees have given over 80,000 hours of their time
and expertise back to the community. More than 4,000 nonprofits in
56 countries around the world are using donated licenses of
Salesforce to run their businesses more efficiently; and numerous
organizations are benefiting from technology related grants from
the Foundation. For more information on the 1/1/1 Model, please
visit http://www.sharethemodel.org/. For more information on the
Salesforce.com Foundation, please visit
http://www.salesforcefoundation.org/.
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050216/SFW105LOGO
http://photoarchive.ap.org/ DATASOURCE: The Salesforce.com
Foundation CONTACT: Erin O'Keeffe of salesforce.com,
+1-415-536-6150, Web site: http://www.salesforcefoundation.org/
http://www.force.com/ http://www.tides.org/
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