Long Island Housing Partnership (LIHP) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to addressing affordable housing needs and promoting community development on Long Island, New York. Founded in 1987, LIHP works to create affordable housing opportunities for low and moderate-income individuals and families in the Long Island region.
Project 1: Configuring Salesforce for Emergency Rental Assistance Program
In 2021, North Peak was brought in to help LIHP build out their Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP). The program makes funding available to households in the towns of Hempstead and Oyster Bay that are struggling to pay rent or utilities. At the time this was an even more pressing issue than usual, due to the effects of the COVID 19 pandemic. The funds were provided directly to states, U.S. territories, local governments and Indian tribes through the Consolidated Appropriations Act enacted on December 27, 2020, and the American Rescue Plan Act, which was enacted on March 11, 2021.
Recipients of these federal dollars use the funds to provide assistance to eligible households through existing or newly created rental assistance programs, like LIHP’s ERAP program. This program, which was launched in June 2021, required extensive configuration of FormAssembly forms and connectors used in the application and intake process, as well as the configuration and customization of Salesforce to support the entire application process. LIHP uses HomeKeeper for the majority of its programs, and all configuration was installed on top of the existing housing services application.
Due to the quick turnaround necessary to launch the programs and to get the dollars out, it was imperative for LIHP to move quickly. In talking to other organizations and reviewing Client Managed Software Platforms, Salesforce was LIHP’s best option. At that time North Peak was brought on due to their extensive history with Salesforce and from recommendations from other agencies who were involved in this initiative.
LIHP received approximately 3,500 applications through the Emergency Rental Assistance program and was able to assist over 2,200 households. In total, LIHP distributed over $50 million dollars to renters and landlords in need.
While LIHP was already using Salesforce + HomeKeeper in a limited capacity at the time, it was new to most of the staff. Despite the learning curve and tight project timeline, members of the North Peak team were able to work with LIHP staff to meet the goals for program launch.
Because of the tight deadline for completion of the project, regular communication and solution delivery were top priorities for both North Peak and LIHP. Despite everyone’s best efforts, the launch of the solution had to be pushed out by several days, though the final deadline was still met.
Without North Peak’s vast knowledge the transition would have been difficult and very time consuming. This would have delayed getting the money out to those most in need.
Through the ERAP program, LIHP was able to provide emergency funding assistance to over 2,220 households. Their program delivery was also more streamlined, ensuring that staff were able to ramp up services while reducing the amount of time spent on manual processes or troubleshooting issues.
The COVID-19 Pandemic created many issues for renters and landlords across the country. The federal funding to assist those most in need was a vital tool to keep people housed during a very critical time. It was also beneficial to businesses as landlords were struggling to stay afloat without much-needed rents coming in. While the timeframe was tough to launch a program so quickly, with North Peak’s support and guidance, LIHP was able to carry out a successful program and serve those in need.
Project 2: Expanding Existing Salesforce Instance to Support More Affordable Housing Programs
After success with the ERAP program, North Peak and LIHP turned their attention to a full buildout of the existing Salesforce instance to further support LIHP’s Homeownership, Rental Assistance, Crisis, and Home Improvement programs.
The goal of the buildout was to ensure all LIHP programs are operated through Salesforce, which allows for more streamlined workflows among staff and consistency with data and reporting. Additional requirements of the Salesforce Expansion included the development of a randomization tool for lottery-based program intake applications, and a document checklist for housing program counselors to help them keep track of the status of each applicant.
A thorough discovery helped North Peak gain an in-depth understanding of LIHP’s programs and system requirements. The resulting needs analysis provided a clear roadmap for service delivery, and helped ensure that the project stayed within scope. In partnership with LIHP staff, North Peak successfully set up Salesforce for program tracking and management, and transitioned individual programs so that they could be more effectively managed within the Salesforce system.
In total as of 2024, North Peak configured Salesforce to manage 5 different types of programs and migrated 29 programs for management within the new framework.
No matter how carefully teams prepare, unforeseen challenges always crop up, especially when there is a large amount of data that needs to be migrated into a new system. Now that everything is being tracked and managed in Salesforce, LIHP is able to clean and manage their constituent data in a much more streamlined way.
After success with the ERAP programs, LIHP realized that it would be able to streamline all of its programs to better serve its clients. By working with North Peak and laying out a clear roadmap, LIHP was able to transition almost all of its programs and initiatives over to Salesforce by the end of 2024.
The flexibility of Salesforce, combined with LIHP’s willingness to invest in technology that supported their programs were two key factors in their success with the new system. North Peak’s robust discovery process provided a complete picture of LIHP’s existing programs and systems, enabling them to develop an in-depth needs analysis that served as a guide for service delivery and helped keep the project within scope.
If you’re considering a move to Salesforce, or want more information on how a high-functioning database platform can streamline workflows while improving program management and service delivery, please contact us.
About North Peak
North Peak provides Salesforce-based services for nonprofits, foundations and the affordable housing sector who want to utilize the power of high-functioning CRM and GMS platforms to become and stay data-driven. We achieve this through a holistic set of services, tailored to the needs of our clients.
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North Peak Solutions has helped many organizations successfully make the transition from foundationConnect to Outbound Funds Module got Grant Management. Read How to Prepare for the Transition from foundationConnect, to learn more.
