Empowering Women: The Bring Women Back to Work Initiative

The Bring Women Back to Work (BWBW) initiative, launched on International Women’s Day in March 2020 supported by Salesforce, aims to create a workplace landscape where diversity, inclusion, and gender equality flourish. Founded by Vanessa Gentile, a passionate advocate for the #womenintech community, BWBW empowers skilled but unemployed women to confidently re-enter the professional sphere, fostering a balanced and innovative workforce enriched by their valuable expertise. Participants undergo a free-of-charge 12-month retraining program, which offers flexible teaching, mentoring and coaching to accommodate other commitments and a gradual reintroduction to the workforce. This comprehensive program equips women with necessary skills and connects them with job opportunities at leading Salesforce Partner and Customer companies.

Challenges of Growth and Expansion

As BWBW rapidly expanded in participants, cohorts, learning program and supporting partners and customers across Switzerland and Europe, managing contacts and processes became increasingly complex. The initiative’s transition to an officially registered association in Switzerland in 2023 marked a pivotal moment, highlighting the need for a more efficient system. To support their growing mission, BWBW sought a robust CRM solution to streamline operations and enhance efficiency.

Nexell: A Long-Term Salesforce Partner

Nexell, the first certified Salesforce partner in Europe and an expert in Salesforce for Nonprofits, has supported BWBW since its inception. Nexell's involvement ranged from sponsorship and mentorship to program promotion and hiring BWBW participants. Recognizing the unique needs and structure of the BWBW initiative, Nexell was chosen to implement Salesforce’s Nonprofit Cloud to enhance their operational efficiency, amongst all Swiss supporting partners.

 

Nexell Streamlines BWBW Program with Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud

Nexell transformed the BWBW program by addressing key challenges in contact management, reporting, applications, and cohort management with a custom Salesforce setup within Nonprofit Cloud.

• Efficient Applications: Applications received via the website were manually entered into Excel sheets, and subsequently into Salesforce, a slow and error-prone process. Nexell's future plans will automate this process, directly feeding website applications into Salesforce.
• Cohort Management: Nexell enabled and configured the Program Management functionality, allowing BWBW to manage their program using the Program object. Participants are now enrolled and grouped using the Program Cohort object, improving organization and tracking.
• Workshop and Benefit Management: With Benefits, Benefit Schedules, and Sessions, BWBW efficiently manages every workshop and digital class organized, and tracks participants’ attendance.
• Enhanced Reporting: Previously managed through cumbersome Excel sheets, reporting is now streamlined with Salesforce, enabling the creation of insightful reports and dashboards. BWBW can easily track workshop attendance, certifications, degrees, and participants hiring outcomes.

 

Impact and Future Goals

With Salesforce, BWBW can now see the entire trajectory of a participant, from application, assessment, current status to alumni, and maintain comprehensive participant histories. This visibility, efficiency and automation is crucial as BWBW aims to reintegrate 8,000 skilled women into the workforce across various sectors in Europe by 2027.

 

Valuable Links:

About The Bring Women Back to Work Initiative
About Nexell - Your first Salesforce certified Partner in Europe
About NexellAngels - The Nonprofit Initiative of Nexell
About Salesforce.org - Salesforce for Nonprofit Organizatoins
About Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud