What a day last Friday’s Amp Impact EMEA Summit was. Dozens of attendees from 20 organizations gathered 26 floors up at Salesforce Tower, enjoying an inspiring view across London, as they dove into an agenda that promised inspiration and innovation. A big thank you goes to all our inspiring customers, partners, and Verites who made the time to come together with the aim of connecting, sharing, and learning, including Staci Frost and Nelien Ribeiro Coache from the Aga Khan Foundation who kindly shared their digital transformation journey with Vera and Amp Impact.
“Let's Do It Again” – In-Person Collaboration for Impact
There’s something truly special about coming together face-to-face to exchange ideas and forge meaningful connections that transcend virtual interactions. Throughout the day, participants engaged in thought-provoking discussions focused on various aspects of Amp Impact as a product and digital transformation best practices more generally, from roll-out strategies to building a data-driven culture.
A Welcome, History of Amp Impact, and the Future with Vera Connect
Zak shared the history of Vera Solutions and Amp Impact, highlighting its journey to a powerful solution used in over 150 countries managing billions of dollars of development programs. Looking ahead, Zak summarized Vera’s strategy as Better, Bigger, and Beyond. Salesforce.org’s EVP and CRO Mike Wolff shared a few words about the Vera/Salesforce partnership, followed by a glimpse into the new customer portal Vera Connect, built on Salesforce Experience Cloud.
The Transformation Journey of the Aga Khan Foundation
Staci and Nelien from the Aga Khan Foundation gave an in-depth presentation about AKF’s remarkable transformation journey using Amp Impact first for their Global Reach System to track program reach across 18 countries, and later for their Award Information Management System (AIMS) for pipeline and grant management. By continuing to leverage Salesforce and Amp Impact, they have standardized and streamlined their pipeline process across countries, units, themes, and implementing agencies, while dramatically improving their reporting capabilities.
Working Through the Product Roadmap and Ideation Sessions
Working through the product roadmap and ideation sessions provided a platform for participants to share visions for Amp Impact’s future direction, delving into functional areas like Indicators, Frameworks, Workplans, and Budgets, and discussing new features from automation to AI. Through collaboration and open dialogue, participants helped shape the roadmap ahead, fostering a sense of shared ownership over Amp Impact’s development.
Peer Group Collaboration Round One
The first Peer Learning Group session covered Rollout and Change Management, MEL and Indicator Management, Logframes and Results, Program and Project Management, and building a Data-Driven Culture. Discussions highlighted the importance of clear communication and training during rollouts, defining indicators that ensure local ownership, leveraging dashboards and Gantt charts for project management, and the value of top-down stakeholder management for building a data-driven culture.
Peer Group Collaboration Round Two
The second round covered long-term system ownership and governance, integrations with third-party and mobile data collection tools, analytics and visualization, outgoing grant management, and connecting with ERP systems. Organizations recognized that sustainable impact requires continuous commitment to managing technology platforms, and shared success stories on mobile data collection, actionable dashboards, and ERP integration for cross-functional collaboration.
Attendee Feedback
The feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with many people saying “Let’s do it again.” Everyone who completed the survey felt their goals of networking, sharing experiences, and learning from other organizations were met. The Aga Khan Foundation’s journey was extremely relevant to attendees, and many recognized their own organizational challenges in hearing from peers about MEL, Indicator Management, Rollout, Systems Governance, and Analytics.
Cannot Wait to Do It Again
It was heartening to witness firsthand our clients sharing their success stories with prospects and with each other. With such positive feedback from customers at our summit, we are excited about what lies ahead for Amp Impact and look forward to future events where we can continue connecting with clients and partners alike.