Lending Solutions for Nonprofits, NGOs, and Public Utilities

It’s no secret that structuring loans is a complex task.  There are many inputs into calculating a loan’s terms and payment schedule.  Slight changes to any one of those inputs can have big impacts on the lender or borrower.  It is no wonder that organizations that are in the business of lending money have teams of loan “specialists” whose task it is to structure loan terms to meet specific goals.

But what about organizations that do lending, but whose primary mission is not financing?  Non-profit organizations, non-governmental organization, and public utilities are just a few examples of organizations that lend money, but whose primarily mission is not lending money. 

Habitat for Humanity is one NGO that lends money to individuals so that they can purchase a home of their own.   Public energy utilities offer loans that home owners use to upgrade appliances and homes to use less energy.  Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) is the utility in the area where I live and their loan program is called Energy Efficiency Financing.

Since lending money is only one part of these organizations’ mission, they may not have the luxury of a team of loan specialists in-house.  In fact, the budgets of these types of organizations usually necessitate a very lean staff, many of which need to wear a number of different hats.  Often times staffing for nonprofits and NGOs is primarily on a volunteer basis.  For this reason, it is important that these organizations have tools that allow staff and volunteers to generate loan terms and payment schedules like a professional, even though they are not trained loan specialists.

In this post I’ll discuss three reasons why Salesforce and AMCalc, the loan payment schedule generator, is the best choice for generating loan payment schedules for non-profits, NGOs, and public utilities that lend money.

AMCalc allows anyone to be a loan specialist

Any entity that lends money, whether for a profit or not, will benefit from using AMCalc because it takes the complexity out of generating loan payment schedules.  For organizations that do not have loan specialists on staff, this cannot be more important.  Even nonprofits and NGOs need valid loan payment schedules that make sense.

The AMCalc calculator allows you to generate payment schedules for multiple types of loans.  Once the loan type is selected, the calculator displays the input fields whose values are necessary to calculator the loan type selected.  Interest rates applied to the loan can be centrally managed so the calculator user does not have to worry about what the current rate is.  Loan dates are automatically defaulted for the user, but those dates can be manually changed to accommodate borrower requests.  Built-in error checking ensure that values input are within valid ranges and do not conflict with one another.  A click of the calculate button generates and displays the full payment schedule in seconds.  

It couldn’t be any easier.  If the generated schedule meets your requirements, you can choose to save it.  If not, hit cancel, make adjustments to the values in the calculator and click the calculate button again to generate another schedule.   Loan schedules that have been generated in the past can even be used as templates to generate new schedules.

The AMCalc calculator even allows you to show borrowers how extra payments towards a loan’s principal can impact the pay-off of a loan.  It will also calculate lump sum pay-off amounts for any date between the start and end of a loan.  Both of these features can go a long way to help alleviate anxiety that borrowers may feel when entering into long term loans such as mortgages.

The point is that AMCalc allows anyone to generate loan payment schedules consistently and quickly, no matter what their familiarity with how to structure loan terms.  It is the perfect choice for organizations that may not have full-time loan specialists on staff.

Mission Accomplished

For profit businesses that lend money want to meeting customer’s financing needs while maximizing profits.  The goals for non-profits, NGOs, and public utilities are much different.  Habitat for Humanity’s mission statement, for example, is all about bringing people together and building communities.  One of the ways they accomplish that mission is to make the dream of home ownership a reality for families that may not otherwise be able to own a home. 

How do you know if a loan offered supports your organization’s goals? AMCalc helps by providing tools that ensure loans are structured in a way that are in alignment with your mission. 

Using the AMCalc calculator, you can generate and save multiple loans for the same borrower, each with variations in the loan’s terms.  Each might meet the borrower’s financing needs and provide for pay-back of the loan within the timeframe required.  But does each one meet your organization’s goals?  One may require a higher percentage of interest to be paid back earlier in the loan.  Another may pay down the loan’s principal slower, making interest payments over the life of the loan higher.

The AMCalc Schedule Compare tool allows users to easily analyze up to six loan schedules side-by-side to determine which one best supports your organization’s goal. Using the compare tool you can see differences in the loan terms and total interest paid, the percentage of interest and principal paid per quarter and year, and more.

Using the AMCalc Schedule Compare tool, you can ensure that the loans being offered support your organization’s mission.

Enabling Community Outreach

One of the things that organizations such as public utilities can struggle with is simply educating their customers that they provide financing for energy upgrades for customer’s homes.  Nonprofits may have community members that qualify for loan programs, but are unaware that program exists.  Sometimes the funds that are available for loans may even go unused simply because the community being serviced does not know about the loan program. 

If you are a current Salesforce customer, perhaps you are familiar with Digital Experiences sites (formerly called Communities sites).  Using Digital Experiences functionality, Salesforce users can publish websites that are accessible from the Internet.   You don’t even have to be a web developer to publish a Digital Experiences site because configuration involves simply dragging and dropping components onto a site’s page.

AMCalc loan payment calculators are also publishable on Salesforce Digital Experiences sites.   So by using AMCalc calculators on Salesforce Digital Experiences site, you can easily publish sites that let your community know what financing services your organization offers, and even lets borrowers see what their payment will be for different loan amounts.  You have complete control over the AMCalc calculators that you publish so that loan terms stay within the parameters you set.  Plus, AMCalc can be configured to collect contact information so that your organization can follow up with the community member on their needs.

So using AMCalc with Salesforce Digital Experiences web sites allows you to get the word out to your target community that loan services are available to them and also allows your organization to connect directly with those in need.

I have just went over a few ways how the AMCalc loan payment schedule generator can help those organizations that offer lending services but are not in the business of lending. But there are even more ways that AMCalc can help. Take a look at our listing on the Salesforce AppExchange to read about all the ways you can take advantage of the features built into AMCalc. You can also get more information by email us at info@3creekstech.com.