How to Cut Costs While Maximizing Efficiency through Fractional Salesforce Support

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As a non-profit organization, like many others, it is highly likely that you are working with tight budgets and limited staff, usually while having to juggle additional pressures to achieve your goals on increasingly less resources. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that many nonprofits like yourself usually weigh up three main options when it comes to managing Salesforce:

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1. In-house hire: Bringing on a full-time Salesforce Administrator (Admin) or Developer (Dev) to manage and maintain your Salesforce environment. This can cause you to incur a variety of different costs, such as recruitment fees, salaries, taxes, benefits, and/or any bonuses or employee matches. For a non-profit organization, these costs can quickly add up.
2. Train an existing employee: Upskilling a current team member, which can potentially take months depending on the availability of budget and resources. Training existing staff can also mean that you’d have to pull them away from their core, mission-critical work that you initially hired them for and may come across pay increase requests given the added responsibilities and expense associated with in-house Salesforce professionals.
3. Using On-Demand Consultants: Hiring consultants whenever you need help, which can sometimes lead to inconsistent support, and can also lead to unpredictable costs at a heavy premium. These costs are likely associated with one consultant not knowing where the last one left off, the lack of a handover between the two (they’re competitors after all), and therefore having to start from the beginning each and every time.

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As you can see, each one of these comes with its own challenges. Though, there is a fourth option available: fractional Salesforce support to support your team. Fractional Salesforce support is an ongoing, retainer-based model where you and your team can get access to a team of seasoned experts, equipped to handle your most complex challenges from day one. For many nonprofits, this has become an ideal solution as they continue to be limited on time and resources.

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Want to see how much your nonprofit could save? We offer a Complimentary 24-Hour Health Check to get you started based on your organization's unique, high priority needs.

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The Traditional Support Models and Their Drawbacks

Hiring Full-Time Staff

• High Fixed Cost: Salaries, benefits, and ongoing training for a skilled Salesforce Administrator can easily reach $80,000-$125,000+ per year. In addition, average tenures of Salesforce Administrators at their current company are quite short, so there may be additional costs required to stay competitive.
• Limited Bandwidth: One person can't be an expert in everything: Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Pardot, integrations, etc. without risking burnout or having skill gaps. 
• Peaks and Troughs: During busy periods (like year-end fundraising campaigns), your admin might be inundated with work. However, during quieter times, you're still paying a full-time wage for potentially less work during that period.
  
  

Training an Existing Employee

• Long Ramp-Up Time: It can take at least 6-12 months for someone to become proficient enough in Salesforce best practices before you start seeing some value. To begin seeing the real value, it’s not uncommon to have to wait 12-24 months to get a desired level of ROI. 
• Opportunity Cost: The team member being trained is diverted from their usual core responsibilities, whether that's grant writing, communications, or donor relations.
• Lack of In-Depth Knowledge: In-house training often covers basic configuration. Complex integrations, advanced reporting, and security audits can possibly and frequently remain outside their comfort zone.

Consulting Firms

• Inconsistent Support: You might book a block of hours one month and need no help the next, making budgeting tricky.
• Premium Rates: Most skilled consulting firms can charge $75-$200+ per hour, which adds up quickly for complex projects.
• Lack of Continuity: Consultants don’t always have the availability at the exact moment you need them. And every time you switch consultants, they need to be brought up to speed. You lose that continuous understanding of your nonprofit's unique processes and history.

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Why Fractional Salesforce Support Is a Great Option for Nonprofits

Fractional support (usually called managed services) gives you access to a team of Salesforce experts –Administrators, Developers, and Architects – on a retainer basis. If you’re wondering how this could work for your nonprofit, there’s a few different benefits to consider:

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Predictable Monthly Cost

• Instead of fluctuating hourly rates, you pay a fixed monthly fee, often starting from a manageable amount depending on your needs.
• This fee typically covers an agreed number of hours or support tickets, making budget planning straightforward and transparent.
  
  

Access to a Full Range of Skills

• Your retainer gives you access to a complete team: a Senior Admin for configuration, a Developer for any custom code, and an Architect for strategic advice.
• You no longer need to remember who the right contact is to get help. Your fractional support team gets to know your organization's history, data model, and priorities; just like an in-house Salesforce team would.
  
  

Scalable Support

• As your needs change with the different times of the year (end-of-year campaigns, new program rollouts for example), you can usually scale your support hours up or down within your retainer agreement or rollover unused hours into a future month of service.
• This flexibility gives you the reassurance that you only pay for what you use, without carrying the cost of fixed salaries during quieter periods.
  
  

Proactive Maintenance & Strategy

• Beyond just fixing problems as they come up, good fractional providers regularly run scheduled health checks, system performance tuning, and organizational governance reviews. 
• They can recommend strategic improvements, like data architecture optimizations or new automation opportunities with the latest platform feature releases, to keep your Salesforce instance effective and future-proof.
  
  

Focus on Your Mission

• By outsourcing the technical management of Salesforce, your internal team can concentrate on what they do best: program delivery, donor relations, and fundraising.
• Experienced fractional support teams often have deep nonprofit experience, understanding common use cases like grant & program management, donor cultivation strategies, and volunteer tracking. They’ve worked with customers like yourself and bring across their experience and learned best practices. 

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Common Nonprofit Scenarios & Fractional Support in Action

Scenario A: Organizational Rebranding and Database Migration

A nonprofit decided to rebrand and needed to migrate 10 years of donor and constituent data quickly and accurately. This involved a massive UI/UX overhaul, refactoring of process automation, and compliance with modern-day Salesforce standards and best-practices.

Instead of the expense and time of hiring a full-time Admin for a short-term project, Daring Girls elected to engage in fractional Salesforce support with Summit One. They received expert help for data mapping, custom object configuration, email platform integration, UI/UX design, process automations, and Salesforce for nonprofit best practices. This project was completed at a fixed monthly price , potentially saving thousands in recruitment, training, or standard consultant implementation fees. More on this project’s achievements and milestones, here.

Scenario B: Grant Management Workflow Automation

A nonprofit research foundation dedicated to funding and managing scientific grants struggled with manual tracking of Letters of Intent (LOIs), proposals, and disbursements across spreadsheets, outdated Salesforce customizations, and siloed systems. 

Instead of hiring a full-time Administrator or contracting high-hourly consultants for this complex project, the organization engaged fractional Salesforce support with Summit One on a retainer basis. Over a 7-month phased rollout, the support team delivered:

• FormStack & Dropbox Integration: Automated LOI and proposal submissions via FormStack and centralized document uploads in Dropbox, eliminating data silos.
• Custom Grant Management Framework: Extended Salesforce’s Outbound Funds Module to handle hierarchical grantee relationships and embedded a payment-schedule system for real-time tracking.
• Automated Workflows & Data Quality: Configured email reminders, review assignments, and status updates, while building duplicate-management processes to ensure clean, accurate records.

At a fixed monthly rate, the foundation benefited from proactive maintenance, strategic guidance, and deep domain expertise—achieving a 60% reduction in manual data entry, a 75% cut in disbursement tracking time, and a 50% faster grant review cycle—without the overhead of a full-time hire.

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Key Best Practices with Fractional Support

Set Clear Deliverables & Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with your Fractional Support provider

At the start, it is important that you clearly define what tasks your fractional team will handle (responding to support tickets, monthly health checks, building new features for example) and what remains your responsibility (change management, approvals, requirements gathering).

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It is also important to agree on response times. Some examples can include a 4-hour SLA for critical issues and a 24-hour SLA for standard tickets. 

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Maintain an Organized Ticketing System

To manage your request, it’s best to use a system you are familiar with, like Service Cloud, or a popular project-management tool like ClickUp or Monday.com . Using a system you are familiar with will help you reduce your onboarding time, but if you are not used to any ticketing systems, it’s imperative that you implement one when using fractional support. Your fractional support provider will be able to provide advice and guidance on this to ensure you are both in sync with the tickets and solution statuses. 

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Another important point to consider is to categorize tickets by urgency and complexity, prioritizing high-impact tasks like automation fixes, data cleanups, and security-related tasks over minor cosmetic changes.

Run Regular Scheduled Health Checks (e.g. Quarterly)

Even with ongoing support, schedule a deeper audit every quarter. Review security settings, utilization & adoption, managed and unmanaged packages, API consumption, and field usage to make sure you are getting the most value out of your Salesforce environment.

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It is highly recommended that you address any "Blocker" or "High" issues immediately. These are Salesforce issues that your nonprofit sees as holding you back from delivering on your core mission. These can often be hidden problems like outdated packages & flows, custom fields, or a poor security and sharing setup.

Document Processes & Knowledge Transfer

Make sure that your fractional team documents configurations, workflows, and any custom code. While you have a retainer agreement, it is still important to have up to date documentation for such a time that you may become self-sufficient. 

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So make sure to maintain a central "Salesforce Handbook". This can be in Google Docs, Confluence, or SharePoint so new staff or volunteers can quickly get up to speed.

Review Third-Party App Investments

Annually audit each paid and unpaid AppExchange app. Are you using all licensed seats? Do the features still align with your needs? Has the app passed Salesforce’s most recent security review? If an app is underutilized, make sure to discuss alternatives with your fractional support team. Perhaps a declarative Flow or a custom Lightning component could replace it at a lower cost.

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Cost-Benefit: Fractional Support vs. Alternatives

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What Our Clients Say (and Why Nonprofits Choose This Model)

“Perhaps use a quote here from one of your existing customers” -  Nonprofit Executive

Key reasons nonprofits choose fractional support:

• Minimal Disruption: Get expert help without the upheaval of hiring or long training periods.
• Proven Results & Rapid ROI: See improvements quickly with experienced professionals.
• Employee Buy-in: Consistent expertise and shared documentation make life easier for your team.
• Focus: Allows your core team to concentrate on program delivery, not Salesforce headaches.
• Cost Savings: Often 40-60% reduction in time spent on administrative tasks, freeing up resources.

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Getting Started with Fractional Support

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1. Define Your Support Scope & Budget

• List your top 5-10 "must-have" support services: e.g., ticket response, monthly health checks, data cleanup, new feature builds, training sessions.
• Discuss a monthly retainer range that works for you. Many nonprofits find a good starting point based on anticipated ticket volume and proactive work.

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2. Get a Salesforce Health Check in 24 Hours or Less With Us 

• Before committing to any support model, let our Health Check identify hidden inefficiencies and security gaps in your Salesforce org.
• Within 24 hours, you'll receive a prioritized list of actionable fixes. This sets a clear baseline for ongoing support and shows where fractional help can add the most immediate value.

Schedule your Free 24-Hour Health Check now and discover where fractional support can add the most value based on your organization's unique, high priority needs.

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3. Onboard Your Fractional Team

• Align on organizational needs, desired levels of support, and resources you will need from your fractional team. 
• Establish clear SLAs, and communication channels (e.g., email, Slack, or a shared ticketing system), and meeting cadences.
• Kick off with discovery sessions: review your org health check, review your data model, security and access controls, key workflows, internal and external personas, and Salesforce roadmap 
• Ensure that you run enough  knowledge-transfer sessions so that your fractional providers understand your nonprofit's mission, goals, and key stakeholders.

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Conclusion

If you are navigating tight budgets and expanding programs, fractional Salesforce support offers an excellent balance of cost savings and expert guidance. Fractional support gives you time to focus on what really matters to you and your organization: advancing your mission, engaging donors, and making a lasting impact.

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Ready to cut costs and maximize efficiency? Get started with a Complimentary 24-Hour Health Check and explore how fractional support can transform your nonprofit's Salesforce experience based on your organization's unique, high priority needs