Validation Rules Every Nonprofit Org Should Have

Salesforce is great at capturing data but it’s terrible at protecting you from yourself.

Miss one field, save the wrong record type, or forget a Campaign link, and your reports start lying to you.

That’s where validation rules save the day. They’re simple, reliable guardrails that keep data accurate, donors acknowledged, and reports believable.

Why Validation Rules Matter for Nonprofits

Every missed field or mistyped amount has a cost.

The Salesforce.org Nonprofit Trends Report (2024) found that nearly half of nonprofit professionals lose confidence in their CRM because of manual entry errors.

Validation rules fix that by forcing completeness at the point of entry.

They don’t slow users down they prevent expensive cleanup later.

“Good validation rules turn Salesforce from a database into a truthbase.”

  Jeremy Carmona, Clear Concise Consulting

The Core Five Rules Every Nonprofit Should Use

Below are the five rules that prevent 90 percent of common reporting disasters.

You can copy and paste them directly (and yes, test in a sandbox first).

1. Require Donor Contact Information

Purpose: You can’t steward donors you can’t contact.

Logic:

AND(

 ISBLANK(Email),   ISBLANK(Phone) )

Error Message: “Please include at least one form of contact information.”

2. Require Campaign Attribution for Donations

Purpose: Every Opportunity needs to be tied to a Campaign so ROI actually means something.

Logic:

ISBLANK(CampaignId)

Error Message: “Please link this donation to a Campaign record before saving.”

Helpful tool: Nonprofit Salesforce Data Quality Audit Template

3. Require Close Date and Amount

Purpose: Prevents incomplete Opportunities that break dashboards.

Logic:

OR(
  ISBLANK(Amount),
  ISBLANK(CloseDate)
)

Error Message: “Include both Amount and Close Date before saving.”

4. Prevent Wrong Record Type Combos

Purpose: Stops users from mixing record types and stages that don’t belong together.

Logic:

AND(
  RecordType.DeveloperName = "Grant",
  ISPICKVAL(StageName, "Donation Received")
)

Error Message: “This stage isn’t valid for the selected record type.”

5. Require Mailing City and State

Purpose: Supports regional segmentation and grant reporting.
Logic:

OR(
  ISBLANK(MailingCity),
  ISBLANK(MailingState)
)

Error Message: “Enter both City and State before saving.”

For more examples, check the Salesforce Help: Validation Rules Overview.

Bonus Hygiene Rules (When You’re Ready)

• Prevent future Close Dates on Opportunities.

• Require Primary Contact on Household Accounts.

• Restrict manual edits on calculated fields.

Each one adds a layer of safety for reports and integrations.

Implementing Validation Rules Safely

Always test in a sandbox before deploying. According to Nick Frates’ Flow Governance Best Practices (2024), organizations that skip sandbox testing see 40 percent more deployment errors across automations.

Use version comments so future admins know why a rule exists.

Nothing’s worse than deleting a “mystery rule” that turns out to be critical.

The Starter Pack Solution

If you’d rather not build these one by one, grab the Nonprofit Salesforce Validation Rule Starter Pack. It includes 5 ready-to-use rules for donations, campaigns, and contacts each with comments, logic, and quick-deploy notes.

Clean data isn’t glamorous, but neither is explaining to your board why fundraising totals don’t add up.

By Jeremy Carmona, Salesforce Consultant (13x Certified) & Nonprofit CRM Specialist
Jeremy Carmona is the founder of Clear Concise Consulting, helping nonprofits streamline Salesforce and build sustainable data governance systems.