Contribute to the Open Source Commons

Contribute Your Skills and Expertise at a Commons Community Sprint Event

Commons Community Sprint events are one or two day working sessions where you can collaborate with other members of the Salesforce nonprofit and education community to solve problems and contribute solutions. These events are a product of the collective actions of individuals contributing their thoughts, ideas, talents, and skills like Salesforce administration and development, problem solving and innovation, and teamwork and leadership. Every Sprint is different because each one is composed of unique individuals. And, it's not just about contributing skills. Over 90% of participants say they learned new skills by participating in the Commons!

Community Sprint events include many community-led projects - often including 10 or more teams - and each one could use your help in some capacity. When you register for the virtual or in-person event, you pick a project or two to focus on at the event, alongside other volunteers working toward the same goals.

Mini-Sprint Events

Mini-Sprint events are virtual one day events focused on the work of one community-led project team. When you attend a mini-sprint, you spend your time working alongside other volunteers working on the specific goals that team has prioritized.

Whichever type of event you choose to explore, you don’t need to be a developer or to be highly technical to attend. Everyone is invited and encouraged to participate. Regardless of your role in the community, consider your passion, your goals, what brings you joy, and how you best want to contribute to the Community Sprint events. The majority of Sprint event participants are Nonprofit and Education customers and consulting professionals. Their skills and experience will range from those just discovering Salesforce for the first time, to highly skilled, very active community veterans like MVP’s and Golden Hoodie recipients.

Members of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Framework team at the May 2022 Community Sprint event.

At a Community Sprint anything can (and usually does) happen! For a look at past Community Sprint projects, many of which are still a work-in-progress, check out the Sprint GitHub Org.

Find an upcoming Sprint Event and join the conversation in the Trailblazer Community today.

Contribute Your Skills and Expertise to a Community-Led Project

Community-led Open Source Commons projects are developed by our Nonprofit and Educational community, and led and owned by community volunteers. Salesforce.org staff provides guidance on community-led projects, removing technical and strategic blockers whenever they can.

Project teams welcome all who would like to contribute their time, professional skills, and expertise, either during a Community Sprint event (link to Sprint article) or during monthly working sessions, and meetings.

If you’re interested in contributing to a project team, join the conversation in the Trailblazer Community today.

Contribute Your Great Idea

We've heard it time and time again, and have seen it in action at our Commons Community Sprints—when we bring our community together, they come up with incredible solutions for tough challenges familiar to the nonprofit and education community. Solutions generally start at the same place: an idea someone has to solve a challenge! Add in a pinch of excitement, a dash of dedication, and a measure of planning, and you've got a recipe for an open source success story!

Let's say you've built a custom solution in your org and think it could help other orgs facing the same challenge. Initially, you share your idea in the Trailblazer Community or on social media hoping to get some feedback. The post gets quite a bit of feedback and likes—everyone agrees your idea would be a great solution to the problem. Now what? The Open Source Commons is here to help you, which often begins with enlisting other community members to help you get started building on the idea. Reach out to the OSC program managers via sfdo-opensource@salesforce.com or the Trailblazer Community and we'll help you determine next steps.

Build a Successful Project Team

Successful Community projects stick around for the long term, regardless of whether those with the original idea remain on the team. A successful open source project is more than just code, and requires a team committed to the philosophy of open source and the sustainability of the project over time. It all starts with building a solid project team.

Assign Key Roles

To ensure the sustainability of your team and prevent burnout, we strongly recommend assigning team members to fulfill the following roles at minimum:

• Product/Project Manager: This person leads the project as a whole, schedules and runs meetings, and provides meeting notes. The PM is the hub of communication and keeps the team on track.

• Developer/Engineer: Projects with technical elements (like custom code or apps) need a technical engineer to develop the build. This role will likely also package and release your application using GitHub and CumulusCI.

• Quality Assurance Tester: Each new element will need to be thoroughly tested to ensure a quality product.

• Technical Writer: Documentation can make or break your project. If users don't know how to use what you've built, support needs increase and users will likely abandon the solution.

• Support/Training: Users who post in your Trailblazer Community group need timely responses to their questions. Also, consider hosting demos, recording training videos, or conducting in-person training sessions.

• Marketing: If no one knows about your project, what's the point in spending all this time on it? Promote your solution throughout the Salesforce.org community, host webinars or office hours, and create presentations.

Note One team member may want to take on more than one role at a time. That's perfectly fine, but in our experience no one person should take on too many roles at once. As suggested by the NPSP Videography Team, engage enough volunteers to avoid burnout! Members of your team will have other commitments, so spread the work over more people to ease the workload.