When Salesforce No Longer Fits Your Charity or SME Strategy

If you’re a UK charity or small-to-medium organisation that has been using Salesforce for a few years, this may sound familiar:

“Salesforce works, but it no longer quite fits the way we operate.”

This is one of the most common challenges we see across UK charities, not-for-profits, and project-led SMEs. Your organisation has evolved, but your Salesforce setup has not kept pace.

Using Salesforce for Project Management and Fundraising

Many charities and SMEs want Salesforce to support:

• Project delivery

• Grant and funding management

• Stakeholder and partner relationships

In reality, information often ends up scattered across spreadsheets, shared drives, and inboxes. This makes it harder to demonstrate impact, manage funding relationships, and maintain a clear overview of projects.

With the right configuration, Salesforce can become a single source of truth for your projects, funding, and delivery activity — without increasing complexity for staff.

Too Many Systems, Not Enough Integration

Most organisations we work with rely on several tools, including:

• Xero for finance

• Microsoft 365 for email and documents

• Mailchimp for communications

• WordPress for website forms and enquiries

When these systems are not properly integrated with Salesforce, staff are forced to enter the same data multiple times. This increases administrative overhead and the risk of errors. Well-designed integrations allow data to flow automatically between systems, improving accuracy and saving valuable time.

Salesforce Feels Difficult to Use (So People Avoid It)

Low Salesforce adoption is rarely a people problem. It is usually caused by:

• Overly cluttered page layouts

• Complicated or unnecessary processes

• Simple tasks requiring too many steps

This is not a limitation of Salesforce itself. Streamlining layouts, simplifying automation, and aligning processes to real working practices can significantly improve usability and staff confidence.

Reports That Do Not Support Decision-Making

Many organisations technically have reports, but they do not answer key questions such as:

• Are funded projects on track?

• Which activities are delivering the most impact?

• Where are operational bottlenecks developing?

Effective reporting relies on clean data and a Salesforce structure designed for insight, not just data capture.

Salesforce Requires Ongoing Management

Salesforce is not a ‘set-and-forget’ system. As your organisation changes, your CRM requires:

• Continuous optimisation

• Data quality management

• Sensible automation

• Reliable admin support

This is where ongoing Salesforce administration delivers the most value.

Salesforce Admin as a Service for UK Charities and SMEs

Zon Projects provides Salesforce Admin as a Service for UK charities and SMEs, giving you access to experienced Salesforce expertise for a predictable monthly cost.

We support organisations by:

• Aligning Salesforce with strategic and operational needs

• Integrating Salesforce with Xero, Microsoft 365, Mailchimp, and WordPress

• Simplifying layouts and processes to improve adoption

• Creating reports that support leadership, trustees, and funders

All without the cost, risk, or commitment of hiring a full-time Salesforce administrator.

👉 If Salesforce feels harder than it should be, the problem is not your team — it is the configuration.
Visit www.zonprojects.com to learn how ongoing Salesforce admin support can help your organisation get more value from Salesforce.