Resources for the Nonprofit: Welcome to the Trailblazer Online Community

I’m often asked by new(er) Nonprofit Admins for advice on how to begin to wrap their arms around their new role, and one of my recurring answers is: “Know your resources.”  Welcome to our “Resources for the Nonprofit” series, where we go into a deep dive on just one of the resources every Salesforce Admin needs to rock their role and thrive!

Welcome to the Trailblazer Online Community

If you’re newer to the world of Salesforce, you might yet have found your way to the Trailblazer Community, and if so, I recommend you click on over.  Like… right now.  It’s fine.  I’ll wait. 

Back?  Awesome! Let’s dig in!

About the Community

The Trailblazer Community is basically an gigantic online Community group where users, administrators, architects, developers, analysts, and Salesforce professionals of all stripes connect, share solutions, ask questions, and get things done. 

Content is organized around Groups, Topics, and Posts. Under the hood, it’s all powered by Salesforce Experience Cloud, so it might look quite familiar to you if you have ever worked with that product.  Groups are just what they sound like, virtual collectives you can join that are organized around interests, products, regions, or sub communities in the Salesforce ecosystem.  Posts are shared in these groups, and can be “tagged” using a #s in a way similar to most social networks.  These tagged terms become “Topics.”  Some are short lived and specific, some are more durable.  

There’s a group for just about any interest in the wide world of Salesforce, but here are a few of my favorites, where I can be found lurking on the regular:

• Coffee Chat
• Formulas – Help, Tips, and Tricks
• Nonprofit & Education Mindshare
• Nonprofit Hub
• Nonprofit App Advice and Reviews
• Nonprofit Ask Me Anything
• Release Readiness Trailblazers

Using the Community

I’m not going to talk here about the technical piece, because fortunately, there’s a Trailhead module for that, but here are some tips to get the most out of this resource. 

Not all communities are created alike, and contrary to popular belief, just because a community is technologically built doesn’t mean the actual community itself will thrive.  Here’s where I take my hat off not only to the Salesforce employees that manage these groups but the scores of volunteers who actively participate.  The Trailblazer Online Community IS VERY ACTIVE!  Most questions posted in these forums are answered within a day, if not sooner.  

To get the most out of this resource, here are a few tips:

1. Join groups judiciously.  It can be tempting to just click “Join” on every little thing that you might be interested in, but this is likely to just overwhelm you.  Start small, find your passions, and engage focused on quality not quantity. 

2. Use Your Feed.  Like any Salesforce community with chatter, your Trailblazer Community account also has a Feed.  This can be a great place to dip in and get a sense of conversations.  Following posts and topics will make sure they appear in your feed.  Use the bookmarking “Favorite” feature to mark where you left off.  This lets you scan your feed quickly but not overscan posts you’ve already seen.
   

3. Subscribe with Intent.  In each group, you can adjust your subscriptions.  I’ve heard more than once the recommendation to just set all of these to “Never,” but I beg to differ.  Some topics may be important enough to you that you don’t want to miss a beat, and for these Every Post or a Daily Digest might be called for.  Know that the default is a Weekly Digest, so you may want to review this setting whenever you join a group.  

4. Play “Follow the Leader.”  Every Group and every Topic has a leaderboard – here I’ve shared the leaders for the Topic #NonprofitHelp.  While these lists will contain some Salesforce employees (hi there Lizzy!), it will mostly be volunteers who spend a TON of time answering questions and helping out.  Following these folks can help you find new corners of the Trailblazer community that are useful to you. 

5. Post Proficiently.  When you post your questions – AND YOU SHOULD – use the tool to the best of its capacity.  Be thoughtful about if your post is better framed as a question, “@” related groups to crosspost for greater visibility, and tag with “#” to add topics that may already be trending and therefore getting more eyeballs.  When asking questions, try to give as much context as possible, and remember that screenshots are really helpful for troubleshooting.  In short, use all the features you have at your disposal – they’re there to help you! 

Pay It Forward

Finally, here’s my little admonishment for folks finding their sea legs on the Trailblazer Community.  It won’t be long before you’re an expert at something, and the world of Salesforce is so rich that nearly everyone has something to share that will be new to somebody.  As you benefit from the help and learning, don’t forget to pay it forward by staying on the lookout for questions you can answer and help you can provide.  Generosity is the driving force behind this resource, and each “generation” has the obligation to keep it going!

Your Turn

Let us know what you think!  Do you use the Online Trailblazer Community?  Give us a shout on Twitter at @crmnavigators and let us know what you think!