Case Study
Empowering Conservation: How SCA Streamlined Workforce Development with Salesforce
The Student Conservation Association (SCA), founded in 1957, is the nation’s largest provider of hands-on environmental conservation programs for youth and young adults. A historic nonprofit dedicated to building the next generation of conservation leaders, SCA partners with federal and state agencies—including the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service—to recruit, match, place, and train young people in short-term service roles that support critical conservation efforts. Through projects in national parks, marine sanctuaries, cultural landmarks, and community green spaces, SCA expands equitable access to nature, creates pathways to green careers, and equips participants with the skills and commitment needed for lifelong environmental stewardship.
Headquarters
Products Implemented
SCA’s complex workforce development model strained systems not built for its scale or nuance. Each year, SCA manages more than 1,000 agreements while coordinating partner needs, funding streams, participant skills, and complex federal reporting. Operations were often fragmented and manual. Inconsistent position descriptions, compliance risks, and labor-intensive quarterly reporting underscored the need for a flexible system capable of supporting recruitment, logistics, compliance, and partner needs at scale. SCA also sought a more effective way to manage field staff and measure the outcomes of their work.
Agile Cloud Consulting designed a solution focused on an end-to-end lifecycle for conservation engagement. SCA leveraged SurveyMonkey to standardize position descriptions. By clicking a button in Salesforce, staff and partners can access a guided survey to build a position description. This ensures all necessary safety requirements and qualifications are captured and automatically populated back into Salesforce. The system now tracks the intricate logistics required to field a team, including vehicle orders, housing budgets, and equipment provisioning, all within custom Salesforce objects. An integration with Conga was deployed to handle the heavy lifting of federal reporting. The system pulls data from various sources, including participant outcomes and contract details, to assemble complex reports automatically.
The transformation has enabled SCA to scale more efficiently. Designing an automated workflow to standardize position descriptions ensures every role includes required safety standards and qualifications. As Kate Hagner, Senior Director of Enterprise Operations, said, "It's incredible how much it's automated; something that would have been a full-time job is now just happening behind the scenes." The new system also aligns contracts with on-the-ground execution, reducing compliance risk and clarifying expectations for partners and participants. With stronger data, SCA can now record meaningful workforce outcomes and track industry-recognized credentials like chainsaw safety and "Red Card" wildfire certification. This revitalization allows SCA to advance its core mission: moving young people out of the database and into the field to restore and protect public lands.
