A: Yes! One round of customization is included in one-time enrollment fee and includes implementing a series of customization based on an initial setup survey.  The Salesforce platform is designed to allow you to customize your HomeKeeper just the way you want.    You can add custom fields, custom reports and dashboards, add new functionalities and install other apps alongside HomeKeeper.  If your program requires complex level of customization, you can always contract with a Salesforce.com development partner.  You can work with one in your area, or we can recommend a few that are familiar with HomeKeeper.

A: Anyone can become a participating HomeKeeper Organization, and there are discounts for non-profit organizations. HomeKeeper users include: Housing Counseling Agencies,  Habitat for Humanity Affiliates, Community Land Trusts, Downpayment Assistance Programs, Inclusionary Housing Programs, and more. See our map and a list of our current users.

A: Review these ten questions with your program staff and assess the your organization’s fit and readiness to proceed with HomeKeeper.  .

Yes! We have many Habitat organizations using HomeKeeper, since our homeownership features are a great fit with Family Services activities. Some Habitat are also using our housing counseling feature set as well. Read more about Habitats and HomeKeeper and watch our short video for Habitat affiliates. 

A: Yes! HomeKeeper became a HUD approved Client Management System (CMS) for housing counseling agency use in 2016.  This means you can use HomeKeeper to develop your 9902 reports and send it directly to your HUD HCS account. You can also send other required HUD data including information on your  agency, counselors and their training, cases, clients and workshops.

A: The Nonprofit Success Pack is a suite of apps that provides tools for managing donors and constituents.  HomeKeeper is designed specifically for managing a homeownership program and helps staff manage properties, homebuyers, homeowners, transactions and more.   Both HomeKeeper and the Nonprofit Success Pack work well side-by-side, and by having both fund development and homeownership program management in one system, you’ll have new efficiencies and a higher level of coordination between your departments.

A: You get more than just HomeKeeper when you sign up. Here’s a run down:

Salesforce.com
Salesforce.com is a constituent relationship management (CRM) system. It provides the base for tracking contacts, organizations, task, activities, and has incredible flexibility in letting customers customize their database to do whatever they can imagine. It has a solid analytical system to customize reports and create dashboards. Want to know more about why Salesforce is a good solution for Nonprofits? Read Ten Benefits of Salesforce As A Nonprofit CRM.

To be clear, you’ll actually get Salesforce before you get HomeKeeper. You need Salesforce first, so we can then install HomeKeeper. Learn more here. 

HomeKeeper
HomeKeeper is one of the many “apps” built on the Salesforce.com platform. Think of your your phone. Whether you have a Windows phone, Android phone or iPhone, you have your phone platform and you have added an “app” or two to make your phone more than a phone. HomeKeeper is a robust program management app designed specifically for affordable homeownership and housing counseling programs. It provides one place for all your property, homebuyer, client and program data, and oftentimes you won’t even realize you’re on Salesforce, because you do so much work within the HomeKeeper app.

Nonprofit Success Pack
The Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) is an additional app on Salesforce managed and supported by the Salesforce Foundation. This app provides basic fund development functionality along with functionality to track Contacts, Households and Accounts. Read more about the the Nonprofit Success Pack here. When you sign up for Salesforce, you’ll need to select the  correct trial to get the NPSP, which you must have before signing up for HomeKeeper.

Wow, that’s a lot! Where do I go for help?
The great thing about being part of the Salesforce platform with the HomeKeeper and Nonprofit Success Pack apps is that you are part of a large community of users throughout the world and in your own backyard. This community can be helpful to you in so many ways, but you have to jump in. Read More.

A: There is an initial enrollment fee and an annual fee. We’ve created a sliding scale for annual fees that are discounted based on the size of your portfolio, number of programs and nonprofit status.  For more details, please visit our pricing page.

A: HomeKeeper is hosted on Salesforce.com’s platform in the cloud.   Salesforce.com is the pioneer and industry leader in cloud computing with over 60,000 organizations and over 1.5 MM users.   Over 15,000 non-profits currently use Salesforce.   You can learn more about the Salesforce Foundation at http://www.salesforce.org/ .

A:   Salesforce.com like a smartphone, with existing functionality, like a common contacts database. Like your smart phone, Salesforce.com has an App Exchange where you can select from over 1000 applications to complement the functionality of Salesforce (i.e. Fundraising, Accounting, broadcast email, volunteer management etc.) HomeKeeper is an app that is installed in your Salesforce Account. With HomeKeeper, you get the best of both worlds, a best in class CRM from Salesforce and best in class homeownership program management from HomeKeeper.  We have invested significant resources into HomeKeeper to date, and are committed to continually improving the app.

A: Salesforce.com utilizes some of the most advanced technology for Internet security available today.   In addition, salesforce.com is hosted in a secure server environment that uses a firewall and other advanced technology to prevent interference or access from outside intruders.   Read the Salesforce security statement.

A: HomeKeeper is owned and managed by Grounded Solutions Network, a national member-based nonprofit. HomeKeeper is one of our programs at Grounded Solutions. We also have state and local technical assistance programs, manage grant programs and host an annual conference. We manage the technology and operations of HomeKeeper so you can focus on your programs.

A: Yes! HomeKeeper was started by and for community land trusts that were also HUD Housing Counseling Agencies. As a result, we are committed to a user-driven roadmap that incorporates your suggestions, your needs and your feedback. We attribute our success to the great ideas of others just like you.

A: Yes! HomeKeeper is Lightning Ready.  We expect some but not all of our organizations to make the switch to the new interface. Our current plan is to still offer support in both Lightning and Classic with support forum articles covering both interfaces. We have Support Forum resources for those switching to Lightning. During your custom on-boarding process, we’ll discuss whether or not you’ll be working in Classic or Lightning.  Read our full announcement. 

A: Yes!  One of the most powerful features of HomeKeeper is its ability to provide real time reporting on ALL of the data you capture.  If you don’t find what you need in the standard report templates that are included with HomeKeeper, you can create custom reports in different formats (tabular, summary or matrix) with the ability to drag and drop fields into the report, change the location of columns, filter data (equal, not equal to, less than, greater than, contains, does not contain, etc.), and create charts and graphs associated with your report.   Reports can be exported (in Excel or CSV format) for further manipulation, and you can save report templates so that you can run the same report each time you need it without having to create a new report each time.  Have a report that your board wants the 1st of each month?  No problem.  You can even schedule a report to run and automatically have it sent to board members on the day(s) of your choosing!

A: As part of your onboarding, we will import a standard set of data on your properties, clients and case files. If you can get it into our standard import spreadsheet, we can pull it into HomeKeeper for you. However, keep in mind there are many different ways folks end up getting legacy data in, and how you migrate data and what you migrate will be different for each organization. Learn more about your data migration options.