Vilvoorde/Brussels – January 18, 2022 – Salesforce specialist UPEO will be responsible for the proper functioning and expansion of YouthStart’s Salesforce platform over the next 12 months. YouthStart is a non-profit organisation that teaches vulnerable young people to take their future back into their own hands. UPEO offers YouthStart free services, based on the philosophy of spending 1% of its time on NGOs and education.
YouthStart distinguishes itself from other organisations that want to activate young people by providing a short but intensive training that teaches them entrepreneurship. “We teach them to become entrepreneurs of their own lives,” says CEO Bart De Bondt. “Our training lasts eight days, spread over two to three weeks, and has a great impact. Last year’s figures show that 73% of our 1,000 young people become active again. They either go back to school (48%), find a job that suits them (23%) or become entrepreneurs themselves (2%). We do not want to turn everyone into an entrepreneur, but we do teach them how to put themselves in the shoes of an entrepreneur. In this way they learn a lot of useful hard and soft skills in a short period of time and they understand how important certain attitudes are to be able to function smoothly in professional life. “
YouthStart considers the Salesforce platform set up in 2015 to be its bible. “Without our Salesforce we are nowhere,” says Lieke Leleu, Project & QA Manager at YouthStart. Both the 11 members of the central staff and the 80 trainers use Salesforce. “A number of modules were built specially for us, including everything related to the organisation and logistics of the training courses: assigning the trainers, automatic mails to the trainers, monitoring the training days, participants, training results, processing the surveys, etc. All of this is registered and monitored in Salesforce.” For the commercial follow-up of the 70 sponsors (YouthStart does not receive any subsidies), standard modules such as opportunities, donations from Salesforce are used which are, of course, customised one by one to the standards of YouthStart.
“Thanks to Salesforce, we know on a daily basis how many people participate in the training courses, how registrations are going, what sponsor amounts are coming in,” said Bart De Bondt. “Salesforce allows us to build good dashboards, which is very important for us.” Furthermore, YouthStart also praises the 360° view that Salesforce offers on the entire history of, for example, sponsor acquisition, and the great time savings that the platform provided when achieving the Qfor certificate.
The Salesforce platform evolves naturally, along with the business processes of YouthStart. For example, the organisation lately focuses much more on ‘direct recruitment’, both on- and offline, e.g. through socials ads, posters, referrals through family/friends. YouthStart never stands still. After a successful `dreamers wanted’ campaign they will start, end-2021, with a brand-new campaign, namely `YouthStart kickstart young talent’.
This means that enrolments happen more often last minute, and also come directly, not through partners. For these kinds of adjustments, YouthStart needs an experienced Salesforce consultant who can think along with the non-profit side to find the best solution. Since the beginning of 2022, YouthStart has been calling on UPEO for this purpose. “We like to work with a partner who can handle large projects as well as maintain and adapt the platform throughout the year,” said Lieke Leleu. “That is why I am looking forward to working with UPEO this year to translate what we want to achieve as an organisation into practical implementation via Salesforce. We will use the time that UPEO makes available to us free of charge and flexibly. Sometimes we will use them for minor changes, other times for future-oriented workshops.” YouthStart has already drawn up a wish list that includes integration with a mail platform, the automation of invoicing and payment reminders and the creation of an alumni platform. Even more business processes need to go into Salesforce.
“I greatly appreciate UPEO’s support,” said Bart De Bondt. “From all our conversations, it became clear that UPEO does this from a commitment to integrity. They really want to support us, from the heart, not from commercial or advertising considerations.”
“We are very much looking forward to this cooperation,” echoed UPEO CEO Sara Mathijs. “As a company we are very committed to sustainability and diversity. In that sense, the missions of YouthStart and UPEO are perfectly aligned. We both want to have an impact on our society and we have the same vision on the importance of entrepreneurship. When we set up UPEO, we immediately committed to give at least 1% of our time to NGOs and education for free. With this partnership, we are further putting this into practice.”
About YouthStart
YouthStart activates vulnerable young people with little schooling between the ages of 16 and 30 by providing an intensive 8-day training based on the principles of entrepreneurship. More than
70% of the young people who attended the YouthStart training course were activated immediately afterwards. The training is free of charge for young people thanks to entrepreneurs and enterprises that support YouthStart’s impactful work.
More information:
Website: https://youthstart.be/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/youthstart-belgium-vzw/