Salesforce Certified Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) Consultant – Complete 2026 Guide

Key takeaway: NPSP uses the standard opportunity object for gifts, with the household account as the account on the record.

1. AA campaign member record created against the appeal the donation came from
2. BA custom donation record created separately from the standard opportunity object
3. CAn opportunity linked to their household account
4. DA payment record attached directly to the contact with no opportunity involved

Key takeaway: Households let an organisation address a couple or family once and see their combined giving, which is how most individual fundraising works.

1. AIt holds the grant applications the organisation has submitted this year
2. BIt records which volunteers are available for each of the upcoming events
3. CIt groups people who give and are addressed together
4. DIt stores the employer of each contact so that matching gifts can be claimed

Key takeaway: Recurring donations hold the schedule and generate the individual gift records, so the commitment and the instalments are both visible.

1. AAs a single annual opportunity for £240 with a note describing the schedule
2. BAs a recurring donation that generates the instalments
3. CAs twelve separate opportunities created by hand at the start of each year
4. DAs a campaign with the supporter added as a member once every month

Key takeaway: GAU allocations split a gift across funds or restricted purposes, which is what lets a nonprofit report on restricted income.

1. AIt stores the payment method the supporter used to make their gift
2. BIt records which member of the fundraising team secured the donation
3. CIt assigns part of a gift to a fund or purpose
4. DIt tracks the date on which the gift was acknowledged in writing

Key takeaway: Soft credits recognise influence or shared responsibility for a gift without double counting the income.

1. ABy creating a second opportunity for the same gift under their own name
2. BThrough a soft credit
3. CBy splitting the gift amount equally across two separate opportunities
4. DBy adding them as the primary contact and removing the original donor

Key takeaway: Fundraising totals are published and audited, so a gift recorded twice overstates income and undermines trust in the data.

1. ADuplicate records prevent acknowledgement letters from being generated
2. BReported income has to reconcile with the accounts
3. CSoft credits are unable to be reported on alongside hard credit figures
4. DSalesforce imposes a limit on how many opportunities an account may hold

Key takeaway: Grants are modelled as opportunities with their own record type and stages, which accommodates the application and reporting lifecycle.

1. AAs an opportunity with a record type for grants
2. BAs a recurring donation with the reporting dates set as its instalments
3. CAs a case raised against the funder so the conditions can be tracked
4. DAs a campaign with the funder added as the only member of that campaign

Key takeaway: Batch gift entry gives a fast, validated screen for keying in a pile of gifts, which is what a post opening or event produces.

1. AImporting the organisation's entire contact database from a legacy system
2. BGenerating the acknowledgement letters for gifts received in the period
3. CReconciling the organisation's bank statement against its accounting system
4. DEntering many gifts quickly and consistently

Key takeaway: Household names and salutations are generated from members, so they need updating to avoid addressing someone who has died.

1. ALeaving the record unchanged so the giving history is not disturbed
2. BMerging the two contact records so only one person remains in the system
3. CUpdating the household naming and salutation settings
4. DDeleting the household account and attaching the survivor to a new one

Key takeaway: A supporter may also be an employee, trustee or member of a partner organisation, and affiliations capture those links.

1. APeople relate to employers and other organisations too
2. BAffiliations replace the need to record any soft credits on a gift
3. CAffiliations are required before a recurring donation can be created
4. DHousehold accounts are unable to hold more than two contacts each

Key takeaway: Campaigns exist to answer questions about appeal performance, so the hierarchy should mirror how the organisation plans and measures its fundraising.

1. AHow the organisation actually plans and reports on appeals
2. BThe number of campaign records the Salesforce edition will permit
3. CThe preference of whichever fundraiser is most senior in the team
4. DThe order in which the campaigns were created in the legacy system

Key takeaway: Consent and preference need to be recorded per channel, so mailings can exclude them while email continues.

1. AChannel-level preferences on the contact
2. BDeletion of the donor's postal address from the household account record
3. CRemoval of the donor from every campaign in the organisation's database
4. DA soft credit so the gift is still recorded without any contact being made

Key takeaway: NPSP is a managed package that is updated regularly, so heavy divergence from its model makes each upgrade more work and more risk.

1. ASalesforce removes support for the organisation's entire Nonprofit Cloud org
2. BFuture package upgrades become harder to absorb
3. CThe organisation loses the ability to report on any of its own donations
4. DRecurring donations stop generating their scheduled instalment records

Key takeaway: Retention asks how many existing donors came back, which is usually a cheaper source of income than acquiring new ones.

1. AThe number of new donors acquired during the current financial year
2. BThe total amount of income received compared with the previous year
3. CThe average size of the gifts received across the whole supporter base
4. DThe share of last year's donors who gave again

Key takeaway: NPSP is a managed package that adapts standard Salesforce objects to how nonprofits raise and report on money.

1. AA finance and accounting system that replaces the organisation's ledger
2. BA website builder for creating donation pages and supporter portals
3. CA separate Salesforce product with its own entirely independent database
4. DA fundraising data model built on standard Salesforce