SOS Children's Villages is a charity that helps children with absolutely nowhere else to turn, including those who have lost their parents through war, famine, disease or poverty. Based in Cambridge, 'SOS Children' is a member of SOS-Kinderdorf International, one of the world's largest and most respected charity groups with more than 130 member associations.
When database administrator Nishani (‘Nish') Karunaratne needed to move from their Visual Alms database to a fundraising and contact relationship management system that would deliver full functionality for their future growth, she selected ProgressCRM from Fisk Brett. "Our requirement for a CRM solution also included ‘events' functionality, and potential website integration to enable new donor recruitment", said Nish. "ProgressCRM ticked all the boxes."
Exchange of data was also crucial. SOS Children needed to interact with the international sponsorship database at its offices in Vienna. "The interface includes standard files for import and export of child and village data, information on sponsors and their sponsorship details, and records of payment of sponsorship money and specific ‘earmarked' donations," explained Nish. " We were confident that the ProgressCRM solution would provide all the functionality we required."
In addition to the standard ProgressCRM database, SOS Children also ordered several optional functionality modules to manage sponsorship, legacies, and segmented direct marketing campaigns. Additional software for paperless direct debit processing, and business process automation was also implemented. To add even more efficiency, the charity asked Fisk Brett to install third-party 'add-ins' from AFD to ProgressCRM- its PostCode to speed up and ensure accurate address details, and Bank Finder to verify financial transactions. Finally, a customised 'databridge module' was written by Fisk Brett to import/export from the sponsorship database in Vienna.
The charity has just gone live with ProgressCRM. "We're impressed with the commitment that was displayed by everyone at Fisk Brett and the team approach to a successful project," concludes Nish Karunaratne, "Progress has helped us to drive our administration costs even lower, which is a constant desire. And we've now gone from just a handful of database users, to everyone using ProgressCRM as our central database".
