Youth, Nonprofits, SMBs, and Salesforce: A Path to Change in South Africa

Summary

This blog explores how Salesforce can help tackle youth unemployment in South Africa by empowering nonprofits to measure impact, enabling SMBs to scale efficiently, and connecting both sectors with a growing pipeline of Salesforce-trained youth. It highlights practical use cases for Nonprofit Cloud, Sales Cloud, and Service Cloud, and makes the case for collaboration between nonprofits, businesses, and young talent.

Key Takeaways

• Youth unemployment is one of South Africa’s greatest challenges, but nonprofits and SMBs can play a critical role in addressing it.

• Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud helps organisations track programmes, outcomes, and alumni impact, strengthening their case to funders.

• Salesforce Sales Cloud and Service Cloud help SMBs streamline operations, improve client management, and grow sustainably.

• Training academies are preparing a pipeline of Salesforce-skilled youth who need opportunities in real organisations.

• Collaboration between nonprofits, SMBs, and Salesforce talent creates a powerful ecosystem for change.

Introduction

For more than twenty years I’ve been fortunate enough to call South Africa home. The people, culture, and opportunities here continue to inspire me, and I consider myself more South African than British these days.

But let’s be honest, we face challenges. And for me, none is more pressing than youth unemployment. The chart below does not lie; we have a problem that needs to be fixed.

I know I was lucky. In the UK, even with just a state education, I had parents who pushed me into an apprenticeship and a trade. That path gave me stability and opportunities that many young South Africans today don’t have. Perhaps that’s why I feel so passionate about working with nonprofits and small-to-medium businesses (SMBs). They are the changemakers, the ones who can chip away at this crisis and create real opportunities for young people.

And I believe technology, Salesforce in particular, but not exclusively, can play a huge role in empowering them to do just that.

How Nonprofits Can Use Salesforce to Amplify Impact

Every week, I encounter inspiring nonprofits across South Africa working in education and upliftment.

From literacy programmes and vocational training to entrepreneurship incubators and ethical leadership initiatives, the work is nothing short of remarkable.

Yet when I ask how they track their impact, I often hear the same story: data scattered across spreadsheets, owned by different teams. Reporting back to funders becomes a manual, painful process, sometimes inaccurate, often exhausting.

This is where Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud comes in. Its Programme Management features (or the Programme Management Module in the older Nonprofit Success Pack) allow organisations to:

• Track programmes, cohorts, and individual participants.

• Record benefits delivered—like classes, training sessions, or stipends.

• Report at every level: programme, benefit, or individual.

• Seamlessly link to Outcomes Management for Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) reporting.

And the possibilities don’t stop there. Imagine staying in touch with alumni after a programme, sending surveys six months or two years later to track their progress. You could generate long-term data such as:

“Within two years of completing our programme, 80% of participants found full-time employment earning at least R10,000 per month.”

That’s powerful storytelling for funders.

Another idea: encourage alumni donations. If someone benefited from a programme, they’re often eager to “pay it forward.” Salesforce makes it easy to manage those relationships, too.

How SMBs Can Use Salesforce to Drive Growth

Small businesses, formal and informal, are the lifeblood of South Africa’s economy. They already provide countless jobs and will play an even bigger role in creating opportunities for young people in the years ahead.

But for many SMBs, survival depends on efficiency. That’s where a good CRM makes all the difference.

With Salesforce Sales or Service Cloud, SMBs can:

• Track clients and sales opportunities in one place.

• Automate simple tasks like reminders or templated follow-up emails.

• Scale up as they grow, adding new features only when needed.

Even these small improvements in organisation and client management can free up time, reduce errors, and improve customer service—all of which help businesses grow sustainably.

Bridging the Gap: Nonprofits, SMBs, and Youth Talent

Here’s where things get really exciting. Thanks to the incredible work of leaders like Ursula Fear at Salesforce, combined with training academies like Life Choices Academy, Africa Ohana, and Cape Force, we’re now seeing a steady pipeline of young South Africans trained in Salesforce skills.

These are bright, motivated individuals ready to contribute. What they need are opportunities placements in SMBs, internships, and entry-level roles where they can prove their worth.

It’s a win-win:

• Nonprofits are upskilling youth.

• SMBs need affordable, skilled talent and better systems to grow.

• Salesforce provides the platform that ties it all together.

A Reason for Hope

Youth unemployment in South Africa is a daunting problem. But I genuinely believe the narrative can change.

By equipping nonprofits with better tools to track and showcase their impact, supporting SMBs with scalable systems to grow, and connecting them both to a new generation of skilled young people, we can make a difference.

Maybe not overnight. Maybe not in huge leaps. That said I remain hopeful that the narrative can change through the amazing work being done by Nonprofits and training programmes in general, combined with the ability of tools like Salesforce to drive efficiencies in Small businesses, so the percentage of unemployed youths can fall one percentage point at a time.