Rumor has it that Google and Salesforce are teaming up to create an integrated toolsuite. Check out the eCRM Guide article, “Google, Salesforce to Meet in Enterprise?” The meat:

“The most likely product integration, the sources say, would be a combination of Google’s messaging and e-mail applications with Salesforce.com’s customer-relationship management (CRM) tools.”

In layman’s terms, this means nonprofits would have the option to replace their Microsoft applications (Word, Excel, Outlook) with Google applications (Google Docs, Gmail, Gchat, etc) and then integrate those Google apps directly to their Salesforce suite. That would allow nonprofits to track relationships with their constituents in a much deeper way, all in one place. For many nonprofits, that’ll be a very powerful toolsuite — and especially appealing because its free.

In fact, I’ll go out on a limb and say that this Google + Salesforce mash, if it happens, may give many nonprofits the single biggest push they need to start embracing CRM as a strategy. Translation: If these integrated tools are free and easy, many nonprofits will finally be able to make the leap from lists of constituents to relationships with constituents. That’s an exciting leap. (For more on CRM as a strategy, see Paul Hagen’s great “Relationship-Centric Organization” article on Idealware.)

If anyone knows more about the Google + Salesforce rumors, I for one would love to hear it!