When a nonprofit organization needed to collect applicant data directly into Salesforce, several common solutions were evaluated - including Web-to-Lead, Experience Cloud, Zapier, and other third-party tools. However, each option introduced challenges related to cost, flexibility, complexity, or data control.This session explores the architectural journey that led to a custom solution: an HTML form built on WordPress, a Node.js middleware layer to manage secure authentication and processing, and an Apex REST API that creates records directly in Salesforce.The session will demonstrate how a secure and scalable integration can be designed when out-of-the-box solutions are not sufficient.