Custom Solutions

Need: Organizations periodically need to certify new entities and re-certify existing ones. Organizations have different criteria for these certifications and require systems that follow their particular work flow. This process can be very time-intensive and paper-intensive. Several staff members are needed to communicate with agencies via phone and email to insure the certification criteria are met. Often during a campaign new entities are designated, and these sometimes large designations are dependent upon the quick and efficient certification of this entity. Larger donations can come from individual donors and corporations requiring expedient communication between staff and givers. A lull in this process can mean the loss of the pledge.

Solution: Provide a web-based system that allows an agency to begin the certification process by following an intuitive wizard to answer critical certification criteria. The system has the ability to track the progress of the agency and notify the staff. Using this method, the staff knows where the agency is in the application process and if any additional information is required, based on the organization’s particular needs. Often times the certification process needs to begin due to a designation from a leadership giver, leadership staff can track the progress of the certification allowing them to keep in touch with the donor. This solution provided a means to automate this previously labor and time intensive process. Donors can easily find out the status of their designation, leadership staff are easily notified if any problems occur during the certification process and issues are quickly handled.

Need: Although legacy systems provide a means to input paper pledge card data, often it is labor intensive and not intuitive, in addition to not being portable. The customer desired a method that would provide rapid data entry into a simple user interface that could be accessed from any location and would interface with the existing legacy system. This simple to use interface needed to follow the organization’s particular work flow. Although the process provided through the legacy system worked well, it did not accommodate the desired work flow and was not portable.

Solution: Provide a secure, easy to use Web-based user interface functional with a 10-key pad or standard keyboard. Data entry users are only presented with relevant fields that display conditionally upon the type of information that is entered, thus following the organization’s particular work flow and focusing on pre-determined fields based on the type of options a donor had selected. With a Web-based user interface data entry could be accomplished in the organization’s office or setup at a variety of company locations. The interface easily flows to and from the legacy system and with a single click the administrator is able to compile a data import file that uploads the paper pledge data for processing into the existing legacy system.

Need: Resource Development staff relied on IT staff to download data and build reports when in depth analysis was needed. The legacy system provided a variety of formats but not the exact layout needed by many complex analysis sessions. Presentation of data was a key factor in determining if there was a need for an easier way to display the data in a more professional format. Besides complex and presentable analysis solutions there was also a need to create a marketing tool which would act as a “call booklet” during CEO visits.

Solution: Provide a report building tool that integrates with the legacy system, enabling the Resource Development staff to intuitively create their own reports. The call booklet builder uses a customizable template displaying key factors Resource Development needed to emphasize while meeting with the CEO.

Need: A complex set of reports is needed to analyze the success of the campaign and make projections for upcoming years. These reports span several reporting periods and consist of many different reporting scenarios. Overall data is analyzed; pieces are dropped in and removed such as Leadership, workplace giving, planned giving, and many different per capita scenarios. Although data could be extracted it was not in a format that was easily analyzed. The data could not be easily moved around and grouped together to accommodate the many different scenarios that are needed to analyze the true goal potential of an upcoming campaign.

Solution: Provide a series of data extractions and a complex series of reports designed to cover the organization’s anticipated analysis needs. These extractions can be run at any time and the fresh reports are now utilized during the campaign planning meetings.