Nonprofit Case Study: Scaling a Donation Platform in AWS
INNOVATIVE STRATEGY HELPS GLOBAL NONPROFIT BRIDGE OPERATIONAL GAPS, IMPROVE PERFORMANCE, AND REDUCE COSTS
Women for Women is an international nonprofit organization with a mission to provide women survivors of war, civil strife and other conflicts with the tools and resources to move from crisis and poverty to stability and self-sufficiency. Since 1993, they have distributed over $103 million in aid to nearly 400,000 women.
Struggling with a CRM system lacking in functionality and flexibility to support their global mission, leaders from Women for Women contacted IPCD to strategize a cost-effective solution that would extend their operational capabilities and improve performance in several key areas.
A MISSION IN NEED
When the Karma Strategies team met with Women for Women, it was clear the organization faced all kinds of costly limitations to their financial, data and systems management. Inefficient processes were consuming pounds of paper and hours of manual data entry. Uncompromising software prohibited this international organization from the critical ability to handle multiple currencies and payment processes. Their data center was getting more expensive to maintain but couldn't keep pace with their growth, essentially shutting down during peaks in demand.
BRIDGING THE GAPS
Anxious to help, the Karma Strategies team first analyzed Women for Women's CRM software and internal infrastructure,while incorporating their business requirements and initiatives for growth.
The team delivered an innovative strategy to design, build and deploy a scalable new system that would integrate with their existing CRM software, extending functionality without recreating the CRM functions they already had. This would enable them to easily share data between the two systems, preserving the integrity of their large database and minimizing any disruption to their members, staff and volunteers.
In addition, Karma Strategies wanted to help Women for Women modernize their infrastructure in manageable phases including new tablet devices and training for their mobile workers and a solution for their data center that was more reliable, flexible and affordable.
INNOVATIVE IDEAS. IMPRESSIVE RESULTS.
To help Women for Women become a more productive and transparent nonprofit, Karma Strategies advisors and engineers considered several factors in all phases of planning, design, development and deployment. Working together, the Karma Strategies team delivered a comprehensive, cost-effective solution that has provided impressive improvements across the organization.
EFFICIENT DATA MANAGEMENT
Karma Strategies built a logical data model that gives the organization new capabilities to collect, process, query,organize, change, duplicate, repurpose and amend data using their existing database.With data processing and management streamlined, tasks that used to take a few weeks now take just a few days to complete.
CONNECTED FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT & REPORTING
Karma Strategies enhanced financial management, donor and grant management, and reporting capabilities while keeping all relevant tables and information from the existing system up to date.This effectively consolidates new and existing information without recreating data or reports improving both efficiency and productivity.
CUSTOM CAMPAIGN MANAGEMENT
Women for Women now has complete flexibility to create as many unique campaigns as needed with the ability to define variables and customize fields such as currency, pricing models, descriptions, recurrence and payment engines. Built-in formulas automatically apply and calculate variables across different scenarios providing the ability to test and quantify every campaign.
MODERN MOBILITY
Women for Women's mobile workers were tasked with filling out hundreds of paper forms in the field which required hours of redundant entry into the system by office staff. Karma Strategies implemented a web-based system with quality control features allowing data to be entered onsite using tablet devices and synced from anywhere in the world, saving tens of thousands of dollars a year in staffing and paper costs.
MULTIPLE CURRENCIES & PAYMENT OPTIONS
By adding the ability to handle multiple currencies and payment options, Women for Women can extend their reach anywhere in the world creating new opportunities for revenue, growth and awareness.
TRANSPARENT MONITORING & EVALUATION
Improved M&E capabilities have allowed Women for Women to become a more accountable, transparent nonprofit. Expanded features provide holistic or drilled down views of impact, progress and compliance.
SCALABLE TECHNOLOGY
Rapid growth was tasking Women for Women's small internal data center to a point of shutting down during peak demand. Karma Strategies performed in-depth research of several cloud-based providers and presented a plan that would only cost them a few hundred dollars versus thousands required by competing providers. The team successfully tested and executed a full migration. Now, Women for Women has the flexibility to set up unlimited projects on a demand basis and can handle thousands of concurrent requests within minutes. With no expensive data center to support, the organization continues to save thousands of dollars year over year with predictable costs, reduced IT requirements and reliable technology that aligns with their needs.