Before iMIS each minister had their own
program and maintained their own membership list that was not linked to
NAC's main office, resulting in a great deal of duplication. With iMIS, the local ministers have access to the main
office's information stored in iMIS, which
decreases the amount of work required on the local level and improves
the accuracy of this information.
Sharing Information Quickly
Another key benefit experienced by NAC has been in the use of iMIS to report weekly offerings from each of its
congregations online.
"iMIS has allowed all collections taken
locally to be reported to the head office within 24-48 hours of an
event," said NAC Systems Administrator Christy Eckhardt. "Prior to iMIS those reports took 6-8 weeks to process. Now,
within 48 hours, we can see what kind of success each event
experienced."
These donations are key to allowing NAC to operate and work towards
fulfilling its mission, growing its membership, and supporting the NAC
Foreign Extension which serves five million members in 75 countries.
In addition to faster reporting, iMIS has
simultaneously decreased data entry. Before iMIS, the head office performed the majority of data
entry but now it is dispersed via the Web to volunteers. "Data entry in
the head off has been reduced by as much as 75%," says Eckhardt.
Helping Volunteers Improve Focus
iMIS has also helped NAC better manage and
assist a resource even more valuable than donations, its volunteers.
Prior to iMIS, each NAC volunteer was burdened
with a great deal of paperwork, which diverted their focus from more
important spiritual matters. With iMIS, NAC
has succeeded in automating much of this paperwork, creating more
efficiency, and reducing the busy work requirements of its
volunteers.
"Our overall objective is to reduce the administrative workload of
the volunteer," said Eckhardt. "We want them to be able to focus on
spiritual matters and not be doing paperwork. Prior to iMIS, there were 25-30 different forms to be filled
out and sent to the head office for input into the system, creating more
work for those staff members as well."
NAC realizes how important motivated volunteers are to its mission,
both in terms of time and money donated to the organization. Being
disrespectful or wasteful of any of these resources could be extremely
costly to NAC.
"The iMIS solution has respect for the
volunteer's time and effort," said Eckhardt. "At the local level, time
is not wasted and volunteers have the tools they need to do their job.
At the strategic level, the organization can move forward to meet its
goals. iMIS allows you to grow."
A Solution That Grows With You
Growth was one of the key aspects that led NAC to choose iMIS. While other solutions were considered, in the
end the available support, time-tested success and continuing
technological development of iMIS made the
choice a no-brainer. And, with the help of ASI, NAC was able to
implement and install its iMIS solution on
time and under budget.
"iMIS was the solution for us," said
Eckhardt. "Initially there was opposition because people were sure that
we could do this ourselves. However, for something that is so mission
critical, you need to rely on a tested product that will be supported
for years to come. iMIS is great because we
have a platform we know we can depend on indefinitely and won't have to
continually reinvent the wheel.
"When someone asks me how long we are going to use iMIS, I say 15-20 years. ASI has thought out further
in the future than we have. That's the great thing about using iMIS, ASI is constantly thinking outside the box and
sharing information for a solution with a user base of 30,000, rather
than just one organization." |
