Navatar Group and salesforce.com spotlight new revenue opportunities for Points of Light

When HandsOn Network, the volunteer-focused arm of Points of Light Institute, wanted to help its affiliates do a better job of managing their volunteer efforts, it tapped Navatar Group and salesforce.com for assistance. The resulting HandsOn Connect application does more than just help nonprofits manage everything from contact and donor management to event planning, volunteer recruitment, and website production. It also gives HandsOn Network a way to reach out to corporate America—and a new revenue stream to support its efforts.
 

HandsOn Network opportunity

HandsOn Network is the nation’s largest network of volunteers. With more than 250 HandsOn Action Centers across the globe, one of the organization’s chief activities is connecting volunteers with projects in their communities. HandsOn Network also works with large companies to help employees find volunteer activities to fulfill their service and employee engagement goals.
 

For many years the organization provided a client/server system to its Action Centers, to manage volunteer activity, but the system was inflexible, outdated, and expensive to maintain across multiple locations. HandsOn investigated several solutions, but decided to build a new system from scratch using Force.com, which offers greater flexibility and a lower cost.  The Salesforce.com Foundation recommended Navatar Group for building a commercial product on Force.com.
 

Navatar Group has worked closely with salesforce.com to build and market commercial products built on Force.com, including Navatar’s cloud solutions for financial services firms, which are used in over 20 countries. According to Alok Misra, co-founder and principal, “We built our company around Salesforce because it frees us from infrastructure, and its cost structure lets us serve small companies and nonprofits that can’t afford traditional CRM.” Alok’s recent book, “Force.com as your key to the Cloud Kingdom”, outlines the ins and outs of building and marketing on Force.com.
 

Turning a new application into a saleable product

It took just 8 months for a team of 10 at Navatar Group to develop HandsOn Connect using a combination of Force.com code (Apex), Force.com pages (Visualforce), and Force.com sites. HandsOn Connect provides a front-end website for affiliates with a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor that lets them easily maintain and update content. Volunteers use the site to create profiles, find opportunities, manage teams, and maintain a record of service hours. HandsOn Connect supports a variety of activities and operations, including event planning, donor marketing, recruitment, and impact reporting. It includes a volunteer data hub, also built on Force.com, that aggregates volunteer opportunities from all the HandsOn centers.

The HandsOn volunteer opportunities can be useful to companies that use Salesforce CRM, so Navatar also built a version of HandsOn Connect that can be marketed to corporations. This version, integrated with the volunteer data hub, helps large companies connect their employees with volunteer opportunities and track service goals. Built on Force.com sites and the Salesforce customer portal, it can be used by any employee (even those without a Salesforce license). The app seamlessly integrates with Salesforce CRM for one unified system.

Misra explains, “In the early days of Navatar, we realized if we have 10 customers with the same needs, we don’t have to do the work 10 times. Force.com lets us build one product that works for everyone, and gives us a recurring revenue stream. With Force.com’s multitenant architecture we can deliver a commercial product that can be easily rolled out and automatically upgraded.”

New “social venture” opportunities in the cloud

HandsOn Network is enthusiastic about HandsOn Connect. According to Amy Smith, President, HandsOn Network, “The reception from our affiliates has been very good. With the legacy technology we struggled to keep up with evolving business needs, but now they can do a lot of things themselves and we expect some savings in our operating costs. We’re also excited about the potential of our corporate version.”

The corporate world’s response to HandsOn Connect has been extremely positive. Not only will this application provide a new income stream for HandsOn Network, enabling the organization to deliver on its mission for years to come.

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