If you were implementing Salesforce for a nonprofit, the advice was simple and consistent. Install NPSP, configure a few things, maybe add a couple of apps later, and you were on your way. For a long time, that advice was not just reasonable — it was correct.
That era, however, is ending.
Salesforce has made its direction increasingly clear over the past few years. While NPSP is still supported for existing organizations, it is no longer the strategic foundation Salesforce is building on. There’s no major innovation roadmap behind it, no meaningful expansion planned, and no real alignment with where Salesforce is putting its energy today — AI, industry clouds, and Agentforce.
In other words, NPSP still works. But it is no longer the future.
That leaves nonprofits — especially those starting new implementations or planning their next phase — facing a decision they didn’t have to make before.
Today, there are effectively two forward-looking paths:
This shift is significant, and understandably confusing, particularly for nonprofits that have relied on NPSP guidance for more than a decade.
So let’s slow it down and talk through what’s actually happening — and what your options really are.
NPSP was built on Sales Cloud at a time when Salesforce didn’t yet think in terms of industry clouds or deeply opinionated vertical architectures. It grew organically, solved real problems, and served nonprofits well for many years.
But Salesforce has moved on.
There’s been no meaningful roadmap investment in NPSP for some time now. Scaling is difficult and there’s no long-term innovation strategy tied to it. And critically, it has no real alignment with Salesforce’s current priorities around AI, Data Cloud, or Agentforce.
That’s usually the clearest signal you can get from Salesforce.
So while NPSP remains supported — and many nonprofits will continue to run it successfully for years — it is no longer where Salesforce is steering new implementations. That’s why new nonprofit projects are increasingly being guided away from NPSP and toward one of two modern alternatives.
Salesforce’s formal answer to “what comes after NPSP” is Agentforce for Nonprofit, commonly referred to as Nonprofit Cloud (NPC).
NPC is built as an industry cloud. It’s designed to align nonprofits with Salesforce’s broader platform strategy and long-term roadmap, particularly around AI-assisted engagement, structured data models, and enterprise-scale operations.
It is explicitly built for organizations that need to manage complex programs, services, outcomes, and case management — and that are prepared to adopt a more opinionated architecture in exchange for scale and consistency.
There’s no question that NPC is powerful.
It offers native alignment with Salesforce’s AI and Data Cloud strategy, a structured and intentional data model, and a platform Salesforce is clearly committed to investing in over the long term. For large nonprofits with complex operations, strong governance, and the resources to manage significant change, NPC can be a very good fit.
That said, it’s also a heavy lift.
NPC assumes nonprofits are ready to rethink how their data is structured, how processes flow, and often how teams work day to day. Compared to NPSP, it offers less flexibility and far less tolerance for “we’ll figure it out as we go.”
For many nonprofits — especially small to mid-sized organizations — that level of structure and change can feel like too much, too soon.
And that’s where the second path starts to make sense.
Over the last year or so, you may have started hearing about NPA — the Nonprofit Accelerator.
NPA is not Salesforce’s official product strategy, and it isn’t positioned as a replacement for Nonprofit Cloud. Instead, it has emerged as an implementation strategy, largely driven by experienced partners who have spent years working inside the nonprofit Salesforce ecosystem.
Firms like Idlewild Partners have been publicly discussing NPA through webinars, community sessions, and what they often describe as a “third path” for nonprofits navigating life after NPSP.
Rather than forcing organizations directly into NPC, NPA offers a more incremental modernization route.
At its core, NPA is about replacing legacy NPSP patterns with cleaner, more modern foundations — without requiring nonprofits to fully commit to an industry-cloud architecture before they’re ready.
It focuses on practical things: curated templates, well-designed flows, and reference architectures that reflect how nonprofits actually operate today. It’s flexible by design and implementation-first, rather than platform-first.
Just as important is what NPA is not.
It isn’t a Salesforce Industry Cloud. It isn’t a managed package like NPSP. And it isn’t an all-or-nothing transformation. Instead, it gives nonprofits more control over how and when they evolve their Salesforce architecture.
And the reason it exists is simple.
Many nonprofits are too complex for NPSP, not ready for NPC, still need flexibility, want control over their data model, and prefer to modernize in stages rather than all at once.
Idlewild’s message — echoed quietly across the ecosystem — is clear:
there is a viable future beyond NPSP that does not require immediate, full adoption of Nonprofit Cloud.
With NPSP effectively deprecated as a strategic platform, nonprofits now face a real architectural decision.
This is no longer about which package to install.
It’s about how much structure you want Salesforce to impose on your organization — and how quickly.
Broadly speaking:
Neither path is inherently “better.” They simply optimize for different realities.
This transition is happening faster than many nonprofits realize.
New Salesforce features increasingly assume NPC. AI investments assume an industry-cloud foundation. NPSP knowledge is slowly becoming legacy knowledge. And the ecosystem itself is starting to split into NPC-first and NPA-first camps.
Nonprofits that delay this decision risk re-platforming twice, paying for complexity they don’t need, or staying stuck on a legacy architecture until the gap becomes painful and expensive to close.
We’ve seen this pattern before — and it rarely ends well for organizations that wait too long.
If all of this still feels abstract, that’s normal. The shift away from NPSP isn’t just a technical decision — it’s an organizational one. Most nonprofits don’t fail here because they choose the “wrong” platform, but because they underestimate what each path actually asks of them.
A useful way to think about it is not which option is better, but which set of tradeoffs you’re more comfortable living with.
If your organization is large, runs multiple complex programs, and already operates with strong governance and process discipline, Agentforce for Nonprofit (NPC) may be the right fit. NPC works best when nonprofits are ready to adopt Salesforce’s industry-cloud way of thinking — structured data models, standardized processes, and a platform that assumes long-term alignment with Salesforce’s AI and Data Cloud roadmap. For some organizations, that structure is exactly what they’ve been missing.
On the other hand, if your nonprofit is mid-sized, growing, or simply values flexibility, an NPA-style approach may make more sense. This path tends to resonate with teams that want to modernize without committing to a full industry-cloud transformation all at once. It allows you to replace aging NPSP patterns, clean up your architecture, and move forward incrementally — without surrendering control over how your system evolves.
There’s also a third, very real category: nonprofits that are still on NPSP and not ready to move yet. That’s not inherently a problem. But it does mean being honest about the direction things are heading and planning accordingly, rather than assuming NPSP will quietly remain the default forever.
A simple way to pressure-test your decision is to ask a few straightforward questions:
The answers to those questions tend to point clearly in one direction or the other.
What matters most is not moving quickly, but moving intentionally. The nonprofit Salesforce ecosystem is in the middle of a transition, and transitions always create uncertainty. The organizations that navigate them best are usually the ones that pause, understand the landscape, and choose a path that fits how they actually operate — not how a product roadmap assumes they should.
NPSP is no longer the future.
Nonprofits today have two legitimate, forward-looking choices:
Agentforce for Nonprofit (NPC) — Salesforce’s official, structured, AI-driven platform — or NPA, a flexible, partner-led path being championed by firms like Idlewild Partners.
Neither option is right for everyone. However, SyncApps integrates to both options if you are using Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Klaviyo, ActiveCampagn and others.
But pretending NPSP is still the answer is no longer realistic.
The better approach is to understand the tradeoffs clearly, decide deliberately, and move forward on your own terms — not Salesforce’s timeline.
That’s the real work now.
If you want to see how SyncApps integrates to NPA — the Nonprofit Accelerator then check out this video below.
