Blaze Your Trail - Consulting Partner

Understanding the resource constraints of NFPs - time, people, skills - and tailoring the development accordingly

Our Challenge was to move away from a Recipient Registration system that relied entirely on a highly modified spreadsheet, paper records and the reliance on one volunteer to manage the spreadsheet. We also wanted a base product to manage our volunteer information which is on a spreadsheet. As well as managing our written communications. These are future activities that Salesforce allows. We chose Blaze Your Trail because of their experience and understanding of the challenges of organisations staffed by volunteers. The solution proposed recognised that our volunteers were aged over 60 with very limited computer experience. & confidence to use. Throughout the whole development process we had regular meetings where progress was shared, reviewed and modified as requested. This allowed our team to gain confidence it was their system being developed and an understanding of what to expect. From implementation Blaze your Trail has been with us all the way offering support and guidance. The volunteers using the new registration system have embraced its ease of use giving them confidence to use.

The Team at Blaze Your Trail are incredible. they met with me, showed me how to use our platform, made changes if I saw a better way of managing our information and were accommodating in every aspect. they took time to understand the context of our landscape and how information needs to be managed. 10/10 work

Working with Blaze Your Trail has been an excellent experience. They have consistently demonstrated their product expertise and help us to develop cost effective outcomes. Their consulting style has been a great match for us. I would definitely recommend BYT to others.

Blaze Your Trail were an excellent partner for the implementation of Raisley and the integration with our Salesforce platform. They also assist with building offline fundraising workflows that ensured we could better manage donor stewardship with minimal staff resources within our organisation. We would not hesitate to recommend them to organisations wanting to implement Raisley and Salesforce-based fundraising solutions.

Blaze Your Trail have once again been fantastic to work with. Eepsita and Paula really took the time to understand our needs, and built a system that works beautifully for our team. Our support staff can now easily record one-on-one sessions and notes, regardless of their data entry skill level or time constraints. The custom Life Circumstances object means we have reliable, up-to-date info and can clearly track a woman’s progress over time. The new build feeds into our annual Impact Evaluation and resource planning. Paula’s problem-solving and ability to grasp our complexities made a huge difference. We’re so grateful for their work

From the outset, Blaze Your Trail has demonstrated an intimate knowledge of our organisation, taking the time to deeply understand our unique needs and challenges. Beyond implementation, they partnered with us to ensure we got the absolute most out of the platform. Blaze Your Trail has consistently identified opportunities to streamline our processes and enhance our utilisation of Salesforce, leading to tangible improvements across our organisation. By continuously providing invaluable support, our team has been empowered to use Salesforce with confidence and to optimise the way we leverage its features.

We teamed up with Blaze Your Trail (BYT) at just the right time. We’d completed a basic Salesforce setup and needed a partner who not only understood our organisation, but also had deep experience working with not-for-profits. BYT quickly got to grips with our operations, asking thoughtful questions and challenging outdated processes. They helped us streamline and modernise our systems using clever Salesforce configurations that actually made sense for how we work. Their support has been incredible across so many areas—setting up bulk SMS messaging for event attendees, simplifying our grant application and review processes, and managing grant payments. They’ve also helped us stay on top of volunteer compliance, making it easier to track and manage everything in one place. Our volunteer dashboard is now a standout feature. Volunteers can manage their own shifts, check compliance, and view their history with ease. Adding roles is quick and straightforward, and we can now send shift confirmations, training videos, and more with just a few clicks. BYT have been an invaluable partner, and we’re so grateful for their expertise and support.

Working with Blaze Your Trail has been a game changer for our organisation. We consider them as part of our team. Without them we would not be using Saleforce as it would be too complex for us to navigate. We have tried other consultants and in house solutions in the past, but it was never successful. Jessica and Kirsten are highly skilled in not only the Salesforce platform, but also have extensive knowledge of how to run a charity, which makes their support even more valuable to us. This year, we had our most successful EOFY campaign ever. Having a reliable database/ system, and the expertise of the Blaze Your Trail team, in particular Kirsten, were major contributing factors to our success. Blaze is helping us to lay the foundations on which we can build an integrated fundraising and stewardship program, which is very exciting. I see the Salesforce platform as essential to our future growth as an organisation. Blaze Your Trail is an integral part of that growth.

Community Review

I have been attending Ask Us Anything's on a regular basis and am so grateful for the support and expertise the Blaze team provides! Whether its a quick fix, or a bigger issue that needs some digging, the whole team is so supportive and helpful in making sure we can be successful in all of our operations. Thanks so much and see you Tuesday!