Thrive case study

Thrive is a national charity, founded in 1978, that makes use of gardening to change the lives of disabled people.

Thrive's activities are varied but all focus on championing the benefits of gardening to individuals and organisations, as well as teaching techniques and practical applications so that anyone with a disability can take part and enjoy this activity.

Thrive is an excellent example of how a logical and strategic approach to data capture can result in more effective methods with better quality data and easier reporting.

Martin Rolfe, Database Manager at Thrive, explains the way in which they use Progress. "We started using Progress in 2002 following a review of our Alms database and a change of staff. The information in Alms was beginning to get untidy after the database manager left and I took on the role. Many of the problems were due to the way the system did not have a recognisable Windows interface and a lot of staff, including myself, were concerned that we would lose our data."

"We contacted Fisk Brett and decided to use Progress as it was more intuitive and easy to use. Our Project Manager was Terry Carter. He assessed our data and imported it successfully into Progress which we use for membership, fundraising, tracking trust applications, and to administer our regional work."

Having their data in a system that they could work with was the first step for Thrive, they then looked at the data they recorded - the way it was structured, what information was held, and how it could be 'tidied'.

User Defined tabs have helped Thrive considerably with the way they record information. Martin explains: "As we have specific requirements for the data that we capture we use several User Defined tabs in Progress in three areas of our work - for tracking applications to Trusts, for the Training department to collate feedback on courses we run, and the last area is to record details on all projects that we are aware of that work in social and therapeutic horticulture."

Focusing on the projects tabs Martin explains the process they went through: "The User Defined tabs for the recording of information on projects came about after the Regional team received funding to improve our database. This enabled us to start a major rethink of the structure of the data and we asked Fisk Brett to help us with the restructure and setting up of new tabs."

Martin continues: "Initially we had to tidy up the data and develop a way to ensure that we kept relevant information in a structured format. We had 1600 contacts on our database but weren't sure how many of these we could define as running true projects of therapeutic horticulture to people with disabilities. We decided to draw up a questionnaire to send to these contacts and to also use in the future.

"We found that a lot of the 1600 contacts we had were duplicate records or records where all the staff were entered separately instead of being linked to the project. The final number came in at 850. A tab was developed to record the questionnaire responses as well as three others for recording project information - from what disabilities the project caters for, what special amenities they have right through to the types of gardens they have."

"The main difficulty was then in managing the memberships of both individuals and organisations. Because we didn't want to lose the contact history we had built up with contacts, transferring memberships wasn't an option for us. Instead we restructured the way we record our data.

"We use several different address types to do this. Project - which equals the main mailing and contact address, Site - for additional address of the project and home or work for people who are at the projects. All this information is then related through the relationship tab. In some instances we have a persons name entered twice on the database, this happens when the Project contact also has a membership which is paid by an individual personally."

A further consideration was how the information would be reported. Martin explains "We access the information through templates set-up in Report Writer.

These reports then provide information which is mainly used by the general public to find placements and health professionals who may be starting up a project and need a hand to start."

Since restructuring the data and setting up the tabs, Thrive now finds it much easier to record and retrieve data. Thrive has recently upgraded to Progress4 and hopes to develop how it is used by its Information Service to handle enquiry records.

For more information on Thrive, please visit www.thrive.org.uk