The Challenge
In order to accommodate its expanding supporter base, Everychild
needed a single, central database to consolidate its data and to enable
it to carry out regular complex marketing activities to its 350,000
donors and sponsors. The charity also required an easy-to-navigate
database front-end where it could record donors' communication
preferences and insight data. Everychild also wanted a solution that
complied with Gift Aid regulations. The biggest challenge for Everychild
was to record an increasingly large range of ever changing demographic
information, including donor status, all communications and significant
dates, whilst ensuring staff resources were used to the best
advantage.
The Solution
Roland Sadler, Everychild's Database Manager, oversaw the project. He
said, "iMIS is flexible and robust. Bringing
the database in-house has meant that not only do we save on supplier
costs but we also have complete control of our own data."
Administrators can now change or update donor and supporter details
quickly and easily without having to navigate through several screens.
All incoming and outgoing supporter correspondence is recorded against
the supporter's iMIS record. This means that
everything from the method of communication, the communication source,
and the reason behind the contact can be measured and analysed. If a
supporter query needs to be followed up, iMIS
is able to track the query on a user by user basis until it is
resolved.
Billing,
iMIS billing records are created and updated
as a supporter signs up for child sponsorship and payments are
presented. Reminder notices are automatic. This allows in-depth
analysis of payment patterns, greater control over delinquent payers and
better budgeting, In effect this frees up time for administrators to
concentrate on servicing the needs of supporters.
Events
The Events module is used by marketing to manage registrations for a
range of active challenges it hosts in order to raise revenue. It
creates events within iMIS and adds the
relevant participants within iMIS to the
event.
Reporting
iMIS' seamless link to Crystal Reports means
that it is fast and easy for the user to produce any necessary
fundraising or management reports. EveryChild is able to access and
report on any information held in iMIS, in
order to give a snapshot of the progress of an appeal, for example.
The Results
The project was delivered on time by ASI's UK implementation partner,
Fisher Technology Plc, "Thanks to Fisher's thorough understanding of
EveryChild's business, the implementation of iMIS was smooth, successful and on schedule," said
Roland Sadler, Database Manager at EveryChild. Using the iMIS Xtender, Fisher Technology Plc has given
EveryChild the ability to communicate with its donors and supporters via
SMS text messages. It has also provided Gift Aid traceability whereby
EveryChild now automatically scans in Gift Aid Declarations and retain
its 16,000 Gift Aid donation certificates for safe-keeping as a visual
back-up within iMIS.
Using iMIS has saved a significant amount of
administration man-hours, and allowed Everychild to concentrate on the
business in hand – supporting donors and distributing funds.
The Future
As well as extending its use of the iMIS
Events module, EveryChild is working on integrating its website with
iMIS. This will allow supporters to be able to
view and update their own contact records online, to save manual
re-keying internally and to improve its service to supporters. The
Child Sponsorship Module will allow wordwide access to the iMIS database for Everychild. |
