This video shows how I got started with NPSP doing all the work internall with one person. It wasn’t fast but it was effective for us. I also share documents that served as our spec for the phased transitions from spreadsheets to NPSP!
Video explaining how I did it along with another great high impact admin from Cradle to Crayons. 1000 people watched this live and there are 5000 views as of Sep 2014
The documents mentioned in the video are below. I wrote them in 2012 and early 2013, so be forewarned about their age and accuracy. There is no support but you can ask questions by commenting in the document. I ask everyone who goes to these documents to leave a comment about their helpfulness. I will change document access to private if three months go by without comments to prevent sharing old and potentially useless data. So if you like what you see, comment in the docs.
Note that NPSP was 2.x when these documents were written. To begin today, the changes I would make are:
1) I would consider the use of the data importer provided as part of NPSP.
2) The customization to HH Object would be made to the Account instead.
3) There might be a few customizations that we made which are now part of NPSP. NPSP 3.0 added support for deceased contacts, primary contacts on each donation, acknowledgment date and honorees on donations. These were not part of 2.x.
Download these documents as your own starter!