Friends of the Orphans: What a difference a Database Makes

Friends of the Orphans already had a database, implemented only a couple of years earlier. Yet it was cumbersome to use and expensive to maintain. The costs were fixed - a hefty annual maintenance fee that would continue for the life of the contract. The tip off that it was going to be a rough ride, says Merissa Clyde, National Sponsorship Manager, was when she went in for training on the then‐new previous system and the representative from the software company said in a surprised tone, "You have a sponsorship program?!"

Sponsorship is at the heart of Friends of the Orphans' mission to support the network of Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos (NPH, Spanish for "Our Little Brothers and Sisters") homes for orphaned, abandoned and disadvantaged children in Latin America and the Caribbean. Sponsors, or "godparents", are connected with an individual child living at an NPH home, and provide funds for essentials like food and clothing, as well as educational opportunities. More than that says Clyde, "Sponsors give the children a chance to be a child, to play, go to school, and live in a stable safe home. They give them hope and a chance for a better future."

For a database provider to have missed such a central element of the business model is an indication that they weren't listening or failed to ask the right questions. And that was reflected in the convoluted practices that Friends staff were forced to adopt to work around the system: account reconciliation that took up to 2 weeks every month, donor reports that took 1‐2 days to create, donations tracking and data entry that began with a needle‐in‐a‐haystack hunt for the donor history.

Enter NPower Seattle, a nonprofit devoted to helping nonprofits use technology to better serve their communities. NPower database consultants began by talking with Friends staff about their mission‐critical work processes, about the gaps in the current database system and what the highest priority needs were. "The NPower team really listened," agree Useche and Clyde. "And NPower is a nonprofit so they understood about cost considerations."

Over the course of 12 months, NPower Seattle and Friends staff rolled up their sleeves to work out the details of customizing Salesforce to meet Friends' unique needs, capitalizing on the free nonprofit licensing provided by the Salesforce Foundation and the innate power of the platform. "It helped tremendously that Friends of the Orphans was a motivated partner," observes Patrick Shaw, Manager of Web and Database Services at NPower. "They had a very responsive point person who helped us design the best possible product and training program for them."

Karen Fitton, National IT Manager for Friends, credits the attention to detail of the NPower team for a smooth transition when the new system went live. "It really went off without a hitch, and NPower has been with us at each step to fix the little things that came up."

In the 8 weeks since the final transition to Salesforce, Friends staff has noticed a host of improvements due to the new system. Everything from data entry when a check comes in to organization -wide functions like account reconciliation has improved. "There is a learning curve, of course," says Fitton. "But the more advantages people see, the easier it is to make the leap."

Some of the benefits of the new Salesforce CRM are quantifiable, like the reconciliation process that's down to 2 hours from 2 weeks. Or the return on investment, about which Fitton says, "When you look specifically at what we paid NPower compared with the cost of our old system, I estimate we'll recoup our costs in just over a year, and we have a system that truly meets our needs."

Other benefits show up in how it feels to have confidence in the data for decision making, to employ improved tools for communication with sponsors, and to work for an organization that is willing to invest in the technology tools staff need to do their jobs well. With that excited gleam still in her eye, Laura Useche predicts great things ahead. "I feel like I can move to a new level of true donor stewardship, because I am more confident in the data and because I can move so much more quickly though the little things that used to take me so long."