What a Difference a Database Makes
Sponsorship is at the heart of Friends of the Orphans’ mission to support the Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos (NPH – Spanish for Our Little Brothers/Sisters) network of homes for orphaned, abandoned, and disadvantaged children in Latin America and the Caribbean. Sponsors 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.
Friends of the Orphans’ database, which they use to track and manage sponsorships, was cumbersome to use and expensive to maintain. Now, thanks to NPower’s perceptive questions and expert Salesforce skills, Friends of the Orphans has a new, highly functional database that makes them better equipped to help needy children in NPH’s network of orphanages.
“It was frustrating before, knowing that there was a better way, but we just did not have the capability. Now I have up-to-date information on sponsors at my fingertips, instead of a one-to-two day wait because only one person could run the report.”
-Laura Useche, Regional Sponsorship Manager
The Challenge
- With the previous database, account reconciliation took two weeks every month, donor reports took days to create, and data entry began with a needle-in-a-haystack hunt for the donor history.
- The main challenge was to replace the current database system with one that that was user-friendly and fully met the needs of the organization.
The Solution
- The NPower team took the time to fully understand the organization’s unique internal functions and database needs before proposing options.
- The solution was a Salesforce database, fully customized to meet the needs of the organization, along with a training program to help employees adjust to the new system.
The Impact
- Friends of the Orphans staff have noticed significant savings of time on a wide variety of tasks - from data entry when a check comes in to organization-wide functions. The reconciliation process that used to take two weeks is now down to just two hours!
- Staff say that other benefits show up in how it feels to have confidence in the data for decision-making and to employ improved tools for communication with sponsors.
“I feel like I can move to a new level of donor stewardship because I am more confident in the data and because I can move so much more quickly through the little things that used to take me so long.”
-Laura Useche
