Dates: September 10-11, 2025
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia
What a Week! Our FIRST EVER Canadian Community Sprint!
“From complaining about a feature to being able to contribute to an article being shared about it on the Commons by the end of the Sprint was truly an incredible feeling!” - Vancouver Sprinter
Kicking off the Week with the Vancouver Nonprofit User Group
We gathered on Monday, Sept 9 at the Eatery for the Social Kick-Off with the Nonprofit User Group in Vancouver.
Major shoutout to Clair Lam and Lynda En, the local user group leaders who organised this meetup to welcome our Nonprofit crew to Vancouver! And also, shoutout also to the sponsors Cascadia Cloud Solutions, Findock and of course the Trailblazer Community team for supporting the local community, creating as pace for us to come together and providing some delicious sushi in a cool, funky, local Vancouver venue.
Vancouver Nonprofit User Group Social Kick-off group photo, Sept, 2025.
Bringing Together the Nonprofit & Education Community
A remarkable 76 attendees joined us in person for the 2-day Sprint, representing the Nonprofit, Education, and Salesforce ecosystems - including end users, admins, developers, architects, and industry partners from across Vancouver and beyond.
To everyone who joined: thank you for carving out time during what we know is an already busy time of year. Your willingness to share your skills, insights, and energy made this event truly exceptional. We’re so grateful for your time and passion.
Vancouver Community Sprint group photo, Sept, 2025.
A Welcome from Salesforce Leadership
After a buzzing networking breakfast, Cori O’Brien (Director, Commons Community) officially kicked off the day, sharing deep gratitude for the strength and dedication of this regional community… especially since this is our FIRST EVER Canadian Sprint, and hosted in her hometown!
Lunchtime with Dar Veverka on Nonprofit Cloud Migrations
Over lunch, we were thrilled to host a Nonprofit Cloud “Brown Bag” session featuring Dar Veverka (Migration Solutions Architect and Program Manager) - this session was a chance to connect directly with a member of the Nonprofit Cloud product team, specifically to discuss the hot topic of Nonprofit Cloud Migrations.
Attendees got to ask Dar any and all questions around the NPSP to NPC migration process, which included conversations around what Ideas from the IdeaExchange for NPC are in development, and even getting to the root of WHY someone would consider this kind of migration.
The Brown Bag session over lunch with Nonprofit Cloud Migrations PM, Dar Veverka, Sept 2025.
Now, let’s dive right in to share more about what projects were worked on!
Let’s Sprint!
After breakfast and intros, it was time to get to work. Attendees had the option to join 5 existing projects and formed a number of brand-new projects on the spot. Collaboration kicked off quickly, with creative energy flowing.
During the morning innovation session (stickies galore!), our Tech Mentors grouped challenges into Common Themes to organise potential projects, Sept 2025.
After a quick round of project identification based on prioritized challenges they are faced with today, attendees moved around the room and signed on to the groups they felt most drawn to. Collaboration was officially underway - and the creative energy was palpable.
Check out the 6 Community-Led projects that participated:
In alphabetical order
- AI for Nonprofits
- NEW: Charitable Receipting
- Memberships
- NPSP Workflows Replacement with Flow
- Nonprofit Cloud Best Practices
- Summit Events App (SEA)
1. AI for Nonprofits: A project seeking to help Nonprofits benefit from generative AI tools and Agenforce.
The AI for Nonprofits team works to create helpful guides of prompts to make using AI tools like ChatGPT and Agentforce easier for Nonprofits. Led by Jana Walker and Katie Loescher.
Work performed at this sprint:
- Project Infrastructure: The team established a new GitHub Wiki to consolidate information from past sprints, along with a dedicated Google Drive and YouTube channel for project assets.
- AI Content Creation: They produced several key assets by testing AI tools, including a sample AI-generated video using Lumen5, a step-by-step tutorial on its creation, and detailed documentation of their findings.
- AI Agent Development: Significant progress was made on two distinct agents:
- 1) Canadian Welcome Agent: Successfully reconfigured to use Salesforce Knowledge Articles as its data source instead of the web.
- 2) Stewardship Event Assistant Agent: Built a new prompt that takes a campaign overview, suggests a name and description, and automatically creates the Campaign record in Salesforce.
- Key Learnings: Through development and collaboration, the team confirmed that building powerful, easily shareable AI agents for nonprofit use cases is a complex task requiring significant expertise and commitment.
Next steps:
- Debug the AI Agent: Troubleshoot the errors preventing the agent from working correctly with the goal of successfully creating a campaign.
- Investigate Data Source Integration: The team’s next challenge is to determine if the agent can use multiple data sources simultaneously (e.g., Salesforce Knowledge and the web), as it currently only uses one at a time.
- Expand Documentation: Continue building out the “how-to” guides for the processes they are creating.
- Create Video Tutorials: Produce a step-by-step tutorial on how to create AI video content with Lumen5 and potentially record a demo of their Salesforce agent in action.
Join the Commons Project: AI for Nonprofits group in the Trailblazer Community to ask questions or get involved.
2. NEW: Charitable Receipting: A project to help nonprofits master Canadian and US tax receipting for compliance and donor trust.
The new Receipting group brought together a team of volunteer experts to create clear, accessible resources that help Canadian and US nonprofits master charitable receipting. They completed their initial goals during the Sprint, and have already published and shared resources Nonprofit organizations can use today.
Work performed at the Sprint:
- Created a comprehensive guide detailing the importance of receipting for legal compliance, audit readiness, and donor stewardship.
- Developed a side-by-side comparison of Canadian (CRA) and US (IRS) tax receipting requirements.
- Compiled a detailed matrix to evaluate and compare different receipting software solutions based on features, compliance, and data security.
- Clarified key compliance issues such as Canadian data residency, items that cannot be receipted, and the difference between a thank-you acknowledgment and an official tax receipt.
- Create Promotional Content: Develop various materials to share the resource, including a Knowledge Article, a GitHub document, a presentation slide, and posts for LinkedIn and the Partner Community. Click to re-share on LinkedIn HERE.
- Share with Key Communities: Post the guide and matrix to the Partner Community and the official “Sprinty Resources” page.
Next Steps:
- Distribute to Influencers: Share the presentation slide with Nonprofit User Group Leaders to encourage wider adoption and awareness.
- Incorporate Global Use Cases: As future Sprints occur in EMEA and APAC regions, incorporate additional advice, products, and use cases for other requirements across the globe.
3. Membership Essentials: An app to help Nonprofits track their membership data more effectively.
The Membership Essentials team is prepping to launch their upcoming package to deliver features helpful for memberships, sponsorship, renewals, payments, multiple members, families, benefits, etc., within Salesforce to help Nonprofits track their data more effectively. Led by Chris Pifer, Janina Capacillo.
Work performed at the Sprint:
- The team was highly productive, creating 19 tasks in their tracking system and completing 12 of them over the two days.
- Key technical accomplishments include implementing an Unofficial SF duplicate matching component into the package and consolidating all automation from two separate objects onto the main package object, significantly streamlining the architecture.
- They also created standard test cases, performed extensive testing to identify and fix issues, and updated critical documentation, including the data dictionary and test scripts. In true sprint fashion, the team even broke the package at the end of the day, setting up a clear first task for the future.
Next Steps:
- First and foremost, the team will work to fix the recent package breakage.
- They will also continue to enhance the package documentation and run through the remaining test scripts.
- The final push will be to complete all critical tasks required for an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) submission.
Join the Commons Project: Memberships group in the Trailblazer Community to ask questions or get involved. Learn more about this project!
4. Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) Workflows Replacement with Flow
The NPSP Workflows Replacement with Flow group creates Flows to consolidate and replace Workflow Rules for NPSP and Volunteers for Salesforce (V4S) packages. Led by Sarah Gill.
Work performed at this sprint: The team made excellent progress on their goal of migrating key NPSP workflows. Over the course of the sprint, they successfully developed and worked on these distinct flows:
- Email and Phone updates
- Volunteers for Salesforce (V4S)
- Opportunity Acknowledgement ScreenFlow
- Opportunity Fair Market Value
Next Steps:
- With the initial development work complete, the team will now move into the next phase of the project, which involves thorough testing and creating documentation for the newly built flows.
- Continue work to publish Flow templates.
5. Nonprofit Cloud Best Practices
Similar to early community-led efforts to help nonprofits find success using the NPSP, the goal of this project is to begin gathering ideas and feedback to see what the Nonprofit Cloud (NPC) best practices could look like and where the community could concentrate their efforts. Led by Dar Veverka, Tracey Braun, Junette Tan, Toby Ward, Judi Sohn, Shari Carlson.
The NPC Best Practices project is divided into several subgroups, each focusing on a key area, including starting up resources on a new challenge area identified at the Sprint, confusion around how and when to use Actionable Relationship Center (ARC). As a whole, the project successfully published new DPE (Data Protection and Encryption) guidance to the community repository. Below is a summary of each subgroup’s progress.
Work performed at this sprint:
1) Program and Case Management
Accomplishments:
- The team completed edits for the overall requirements and four key use cases.
- They began the testing process for the requirements and successfully added a new Program Management Use Case page to GitHub, preparing it for the individual use case pages.
Next Steps:
- The group will now complete testing, publish the requirements and use cases to GitHub, and review the remaining proposed use cases.
- Following that, they will begin brainstorming case management use cases.
2) ARC (Actionable Relationship Center)
Accomplishments:
- The team created two key “recipes” for common nonprofit scenarios: one for Household ARC and another for Individual Major Giving ARC.
- To ensure others can use these recipes, they also created comprehensive documentation and data model diagrams.
- Posted the new documentation and recipes to the NPC Best Practices Asset Hub for the community to access.
Next Steps:
- Share the new documentation more widely with the Community!
3) Reporting
Accomplishments:
- This team tackled several key items, including producing a deduped household mailing list flow.
- They also finalized and reformatted the Data Processing Engine (DPE) guidance, reviewed the Stakeholder Management guidance, and finished the process of validating reports.
Next Steps:
- The team will now finalize the reports, write guidance on how to use the new mailing list flow, and publish the Stakeholder Management uses.
4) Misc Tasks
Accomplishments:
- Published a set of DPE guidance pages on the NPC Community Asset Hub.
- Completed a proof of concept for using free Tableau Prep licenses to generate a deduplicated household mailing list.
- Completed a final proof on stakeholder use cases.
Next steps:
- Publish the stakeholder use cases.
- Publish instructions on how to do the deduplicated household mailing list.
- Share the DPE guidance more widely.
6. Summit Events App (SEA): Community-built event management solution for Nonprofits and Schools
Summit Events App is an end-to-end event management solution for everyone. SEA provides customizable event management, making registration, receipts, confirmation, and reporting easier and integrated with Salesforce. Led by Thaddaeus Dahlberg, Janeen Marquardt, Pieter Kop.
Work performed at the Sprint:
- In a major leap forward, the team successfully built and completed Minimum Viable Product (MVP) versions of two key AI agents. These include an “internal” agent to streamline event creation for staff and an “external” agent to handle event registration for constituents.
- The goal for these MVPs is to add enough functionality to launch them on the Agent Exchange, providing powerful new tools for Summit Events App users and sharing the work with others building similar solutions.
Next Steps:
- The team will continue testing the new agents and potentially expand their functionality based on the results.
- They will also determine the best strategy for gathering user feedback, deciding whether to engage users for input before a wider release or to allow a pilot group to install the MVP and provide hands-on feedback.
Join the Commons Project: Summit Events App group in the Trailblazer Community to ask questions or get involved. Learn more about this project!
Summit Events App group photo, Sept 2025.
Sprint Wrap-Up + A Surprise Reveal
WOW - what an insane amount of work to get done in just. two. days. We’re constantly amazed by the brilliance, generosity, and grit this community brings, and this Sprint was no exception. You came ready to build, collaborate, and solve real challenges together. We’re so impressed by what was accomplished in just a few hours.
But wait… we had one more surprise up our sleeves.
Sprinters get their Astro Sprinty Plushies!
Earlier this year, to celebrate 10 years of Community Sprints, we revealed the limited-edition Sprinty plushie costume! That’s right—our community dinosaur now has an Astro-sized outfit so you can take him along for your next adventure.
How do you get one?
- FREE for in-person Sprint attendees 🌟
- Available to purchase in the U.S. Trailblazer Community Store
Tag your photos with #AstroSprinty to share where community takes you!
Our Canadian Sprinters received their Astro Plushies and even a visit from (big) Sprint himself!
Sprinters get their AstroSprinty plushies! Sept, 2025.
And a visit from Sprinty too!
Sprinty visits Vancouver and takes pics with our sprinters… tiny dino hands! Sept, 2025.
Thank you to our Tech Mentors!
Finally, we want to thank our Employee Tech Mentors - brilliant members of our Nonprofit Solution Engineering team - who supported our 6 teams with their technical skills and mentorship.
Huge thanks to:
What’s Next?
PHEW! That was a lot! So much innovation is taking place. But it doesn’t stop here!
Canadian crew: You’ve asked us to come to your neck of the woods, and we did! Hopefully even more events in Canada in 2026 :)
- October 14-16 - Dreamforce (San Francisco)
- November 13-14 - Denver Sprint - Save the Date!
- December 11-12 - Agentforce Sprint - Save the Date!
See all confirmed events (and those still being planned) in the group details of the Sprint group.
See you soon!