FAQ

Because charities provide vital services they tend to grow. This typically means an increasing range of clients, increased variety of services, different categories of stakeholders to be managed. More staff and volunteers, each with their own responsibilities, can result in fragmentation of processes and information. Without a single, shared information system in place, spreadsheets tend to proliferate. This will have many negatives when it comes to having a single view of stakeholders, planning and controlling, integrated reporting etc. The good news is that implementing such a transformational solution will be easier, faster and more affordable than you imagine.

: If your organisation is new or small you have the perfect opportunity to start on the right track. Getting your organisational processes efficient it a key to being effective. The good news is that great technologies are available at very low cost, or even free, to small charities. Getting them implemented at an early stage tends to be easy and affordable. Small, effective organisations tend to grow quickly – that means more clients, a wider range of activities and more staff or volunteers. Appropriate technology, well implemented, grows and scales with your organisation helping you to avoid the pitfalls of fragmented information and processes that often accompany growth.

The age of mass communication is over. Communications, whether with existing clients, funders, or other groups, need to be tailored and carefully managed. Without a single, shared information system an organisation will struggle to manage communications. Two key questions to ask yourself are: (a) In how many places to I store details of stakeholders and (b) how targeted and tailored are my communications. The ideal solution is a single, shared client management system that will control and track all interactions with stakeholders – whether it be service delivery to clients, emails to funders, notes of phone calls etc.

Your people are most valuable resource. Whether paid staff or volunteers, the process of selecting, training, managing, deploying and developing your people is a key success factor in organisational performance. As with any other stakeholders, having an integrated view of the volunteer lifecycle is critical. Likewise are robust, yet flexible, processes that manage each stage of the journey. We have implemented recruitment and HR solutions for many charities. These include web recruitment, interview scheduling, management of training etc. Providing staff with the tools to plan and track their use of time is critical. This also feeds into your ability to report on how time is being used, analysed by types of activities/client categories etc. People, Processes and Technology comprise the holistic view of your resources. Synovations can help with holistic solutions to manage them.

Many charities organise events, from small training sessions to large scale conferences. They tend to be very time consuming to plan, manage invites, registrations etc. Part of the value is to be able to track participants and later communicate with them in a tailored way. Technology can help in a major way. Typical features of solution we have implemented with charities are include the ability to plan and assign budgets/targets to events, record staff activities, publish event on website, mass email likely participants, online registration, communicate with registrants, record attendance, online feedback etc. The principle is that a single, shared information system should be capable of managing all aspects of your interactions with constituents.

If information and processes are fragmented you will have a major struggle in summarising and analysing overall performance. The key first step is to integrate your record keeping, data capture and processes. The demand from funders for accurate and meaningful summarisations is increasing. There is also an expectation to measure outcomes/impact as well as just activity. All this is made possible through an integrated information system. This should offer not just comprehensive reports but graphical management dashboards that give key performance metrics on an ongoing basis.

The good news is that some key software providers offer their packages to charities on a donated or heavily discounted basis. The challenge is with selecting the right solution and with tailoring it to your requirements. This also provides an opportunity to take a fresh look at your processes, service delivery and reporting. The good news is that Synovations specialises in this. We are a nonprofit and work exclusively with charities. We have templates and approaches built on experience with hundreds of charities of all sizes. Solutions tend to be cheaper, quicker and easier than you think. They will also offer considerable cost savings and performance improvement.