Salesforce was originally a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system for private sector businesses. Tides Canada's version has been adapted for the not-for-profit sector, and with additional customizations specific to TC's philanthropy and shared platform model. 

Tides Canada's implementation of Salesforce utilizes a plug-in package of functions called the Non-Profit Starter Pack, which takes the original Salesforce objects and re-purposes them for a not-for-profit organization. 

Salesforce is a cloud-based platform. Access is through Internet browsers such as Firefox and Chrome. No data in the system are contained "on-premise."

In Salesforce there are "objects," which are just containers of multiple records of the same type. 

The most important Salesforce objects are as follows:

• Accounts
• Contacts
• Opportunities
• Funds
• Grants
• Prospects
• Campaigns

There are other objects but they are for more advanced functions of Salesforce. The above list is really all you need to know to get started.

Accounts

Accounts are the top of the object hierarchy in Salesforce. Accounts are comprised of one or more Contacts. Accounts can represent individuals by themselves, or groups of individuals such as:

• Households (families or otherwise)
• Organizations of various types. Organizations can be businesses, giving groups, governments and other foundations, to name a few.

Contacts

Contacts are individuals. A Contact will always belong to an Account.

Whenever you create a new Contact in Salesforce without associating them with an previously existing Account, Salesforce will create a new Account with that person's full name appended with the word "Household" as the name of the Account.

Opportunities

Opportunities are revenues. They mostly include donations and incoming awards, but can also encompass other revenue types. Opportunities are associated with Accounts (and thereby with Contacts). 

Funds

Funds are designations. Where a designation may have multiple levels (projects and program areas) there will be an individual fund in Salesforce for each existing variant of the parent designation and its sub-levels. The parent fund is always identified on each variant.

Opportunities flow to Funds. Grants (and project expenditures) flow from Funds.

Grants

Grants are outgoing from funds to external grantees and other funds.

Prospects

A Prospect is a Contact who is neither a donor nor a constituent. 

A constituent can be a donor, but can also be someone who has another type of business relationship with Tides Canada.

Much of the built-in functionality in Salesforce is designed to assist with converting Prospects into donors.

The Prospect object and associated functions in Salesforce are used mainly by Development and Communications to assist with fundraising and outreach initiatives, but they can be employed by other business units to manage business relationships.

Campaigns

Campaigns are fundraising programs with specific date windows, fundraising targets and related communications efforts.

Campaigns are a way for Development and Communications to coordinate and measure the impact of fundraising efforts within a specific endeavour.