When you’re familiar with the Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP)’s data model, transitioning to the Nonprofit Cloud model can be challenging. One of the major differences is how they model people and relationships.
Nonprofit Cloud uses Person Accounts and other objects to model relationships between people and groups, including households.
Tracking people and groups involves several things:
- The person (Person Accounts)
- The group (Accounts and Party Relationship Group)
- Relating the group to people (Account Contact Relationship)
- Relating the group to other groups (Account Account Relationship)
- Relating people to other people, either within or outside of the group (Contact Contact Relationships and Party Role Relationships)
People are the essence of nonprofit organizations, and relationships and connections can be valuable means for donor development, providing services, or expanding awareness. These objects can be beneficial for relationship-driven nonprofits.
What are Person Accounts?
In the standard Salesforce data model, every Contact relates to an Account. Accounts generally represent a business, organization, or group that the person is associated with and is interacting with your organization on behalf of.
In NPSP, all contacts should relate to a Household Account. A Household Account is an Account with the Household record type. A single household links to multiple contacts.
Nonprofit Cloud uses Person Accounts. A Person Account is an Account with the Person Account record type and a 1:1 relationship with a Contact. It visually combines the Account and Contact into one record to streamline information and the user experience.
A Person Account in Nonprofit Cloud compared to a Contact in NPSP
Instead of leaving the company blank to create a Household Account and Contact, Person Accounts automatically create the Account when creating the Contact.
This model has no lack of implications. For example, because the Account and Contact have a 1:1 relationship, CRUD operations rely on the Account record, and field-level security relies on the Contact record.
Person Accounts add another scenario to account for when testing or designing any automation. You can’t use parent accounts. Not all integrations can support Person Accounts, either.
Person Accounts are not entirely new to the platform. Many other clouds use them, including Health, Sales, Service, Financial Services, and Education Cloud.
We’ve used them for B2C service companies and event management roles that needed to track people and vendors. In the right context, they can be incredibly helpful.
Person Accounts and Relationships in NPC
If a Person Account is a 1:1 relationship, then how do we model groups of people like families, companies, or other organizations?
Defining the Group - Accounts and Party Relationship Groups
A non-Person Account represents a group, including households. A “non-Person Account” is an Account record with any record type but the Person Account record type.
Another object, the Party Relationship Group, defines the kind of group. This tells you if it’s a family, roommates, company, civic club, or whatever groups are important to you.
A group no longer has to be a household. You can define groups based on shared interests or roles and track the start and end date or other group demographics.
Relating the Group to People - Account Contact Relationships
An Account Contact Relationship links the Account record for the group and the Contact record of the Person Account using ContactId.
Nonprofit Cloud uses the Contacts to Multiple Accounts feature instead of Affiliations to relate a Contact to more than one Account.
Relating the Group to Other Groups - Account Account Relationships
If you want to see what families sponsor a community organization, you’d create an Account Account Relationship. This tells you what groups relate to each other and how. Again, these relationships are whatever is valuable for your organization–sponsors, subsidiaries, donors, referrals.
Relating People to Other People - Contact Contact Relationships and Party Role Relationships
Because the Contact in a Person Account cannot be related to another Account, a Contact Contact Relationship defines the kind of relationship between two Contacts and a Party Role Relationship.
You can easily view or report on all types of relationships across all groups and the contacts within those relationships with Party Role Relationships.
Relationships shouldn’t be one-sided, so Contact Contact Relationships and Account Account Relationships are reciprocal and linked to their inverse relationship record.
You may not need the non-Person Account, Party Relationship Group, Account Account Relationship, Account Contact Relationship, or Contact Contact records if you aren’t interested in households or groups.
Many nonprofits are very relationship-driven, but some aren’t. If you frequently interact with people who just represent themselves or aren’t concerned about their connections, Person Accounts may be all you need.
Nonprofit Cloud shifts significantly from the NPSP model for people and groups. Person Accounts and relationship tracking offer flexibility in managing people and relationships, but can add a lot of complexity to a nonprofit’s Salesforce org.
While complexity isn’t a vice, Nonprofit Cloud’s extensive data model does warrant extensive consideration as to its value for your organization.