Many Nonprofit System Administrator level users are wondering if they should get Salesforce Certified. This is actually a tricky questions because the Certification definitely carries value to the individual holding it, however, it can also prove to be of great value to the organization in validating the skill levels of their administrator(s).

Before you jump into certification, study the options available and find out what is right for you and for your organization? Also, consider the following. Since you are working in the nonprofit space, a fair amount of the questions may have little to no applicability to you. For example, questions on territories, assets, products, and super complex security issues are likely not the norm for a nonprofit implementation. Given the domain we operate in, most of you might need to review the study material to get familiar with the sections that we really don’t use on a day to day basis. Salesforce has done a really good job of putting up Study Guides, Sample Questions, and Reference Materials to help you prepare for the Certification Exams.

Salesforce is currently offering 5 levels of certification. I have included them in the image below:

In the above chart, I have rated the difficulty level of the exams based on a cursory review of the study guide and review of all sample questions. The above chart assumes that you are a System Administrator and not a consultant. If you are a consultant, you may actually find all of the above exams to be easy, save for the “Force.Com Advanced Developer” which requires some deep knowledge of Apex and VisualForce. (Disclaimer: I haven’t taken the full exams yet, but plan to take at least two of them in 2009).

Good luck on your certification efforts and feel free to post any resources you find useful in your prep!