Join the New Nonprofit Starter Pack Advisory Board

First, I’m thrilled to officially introduce myself as Salesforce.org’s new Open Source Manager. I’ve been actively involved in the Salesforce nonprofit world since implementing Salesforce at my own nonprofit organization in 2006. Now at the Foundation it’s my responsibility to work with the community and internal Salesforce resources to manage, evangelize, and support contributions to the Foundation’s open source projects – the largest and best known being the Nonprofit Starter Pack.

From its first release 7 years ago as a free and open source project, the Nonprofit Starter Pack’s development has always been driven by the nonprofit organizations that use the product, as well as the partners who build compatible apps and help organizations through their implementation.

You may have noticed that Salesforce.org has taken some big steps recently to raise the community voice when it comes to the Nonprofit Starter Pack. The Power of Us Hub is now the primary place for organizations and partners to get their questions answered by other members of the community, often within minutes! We’re now working on ways to make it even easier to review known issues and feature requests in the Hub. In addition, the Hub’s knowledgebase is full of support articles and workbooks for the Nonprofit Starter Pack, nearly all of which has been contributed by community members.

Now we’re taking the important initial steps to incorporate the community into the development of the NPSP itself with the formation of a Nonprofit Starter Pack Advisory Board. Among its most important duties, the Nonprofit Starter Pack Advisory Board will be responsible for the development of guidelines for community code contributions, and will review and vote on the prioritization of new feature requests. You can review this presentation to learn more:

We know that everyone who is active in our community leads very busy lives and we’re incredibly grateful for your time. You don’t have to know anything about development or code to join the Advisory Board. All you need are opinions about what the Nonprofit Starter Pack is and where it should go next based on what you believe is best for the wider community. As a member, you’ll be asked to review, discuss and vote on feature requests, and develop contribution guidelines in a private Power of Us Hub group. Those discussions will be regularly summarized and shared with the larger community to keep the process as open and transparent as possible. We’ll only ask that you attend two actual meetings a year – one at Dreamforce, one via a conference call.

In return, you’ll get the chance to directly impact the development of an application that is core to over half of all the nonprofits on the Salesforce platform. You’ll be recognized by the Foundation and the broader community as a driver of the Nonprofit Starter Pack roadmap.

The Board will have up to 12 members. There are 3 seats on the Nonprofit Starter Pack Advisory Board reserved for nonprofit organizations and 3 seats for ISV or implementation partners. The remaining seats are automatically granted to those who have actively contributed code and leadership to the project in the past. As trust is our number one value, you do need to have a Power of Us profile connected to the organization or partner you represent. Each term lasts one year, with no community members serving more than two consecutive year terms.

The nomination and election process is simple. Those interested in becoming a member of the Nonprofit Starter Pack Advisory Board must first submit a nomination form. In less than 300 words, tell the community why you’d like to serve on the Nonprofit Starter Pack Advisory Board and what you’d bring to the table on their behalf. Nominations close on July 13th. On July 15th, we’ll post the nomination essays in the Power of Us Hub Nonprofit Starter Pack group and give the community the opportunity to vote on the candidates. In the interest of balance and fairness, while anyone can submit a nomination, only one member per nonprofit or organization partner can serve on the Advisory Board at the same time.

Final announcement of the Nonprofit Starter Pack Advisory Board will be in early August.

If you’d like to be an integral part of the future of Nonprofit Starter Pack, then submit your nomination now!