The Challenge: In What Platform Should the Organization Invest to Upgrade from a Legacy Proprietary System?
Community IT analyzed the client business needs and recommended an industry standard information system solutions upgrade that transformed their national operations.
The client is a large social services organization providing governance, training, services, and grants to several hundred independent affiliates across the country. The affiliates used a legacy proprietary case management system provided by the national organization, which handled basic aspects of client intake, case management, and reporting. The organization envisioned an update that would provide significant enhancements to existing functionality, as well as new capabilities to support outreach, community engagement, and service delivery management.
The legacy case management system was a proprietary solution that had served the organization well but would require significant additional investments to match solutions that could be built on contemporary and industry standard cloud CRM platforms. Therefore, the organization determined to evaluate such platforms for potential investment and sought to engage an outside firm to provide this assessment.
The Solution: An Assessment that Combined Nonprofit Expertise + Business Analysis + CRM Intelligence
Community IT worked with the client to understand its business model, document functional requirements, perform a highly-detailed analysis of leading cloud CRM platforms, and develop order-of-magnitude estimated costs matrix for developing a case management solution on each of the platforms—all within a highly aggressive timeframe.
In performing the work, Community IT relied on our considerable experience with non-profit organizations, our business analysis capabilities, and our experience in helping organizations to select and successfully implement customer relationship management (CRM) and case management systems.
The Result: A Solid and Timely Recommendation
With Community IT’s assistance, the client was empowered with the information needed to inform the development of its new case management system. The clearly-stated analysis was written and presented in layers, ensuring that all internal audiences would be able to access the right amount of information relative to their role in the decision process. The analysis and accompanying presentation also included a variety of visual aids that allowed the reader to see at a glance how the solutions compared across critical sets of capabilities and other evaluation criteria.
The client was enthusiastic in its praise of Community IT’s work. With full Community IT support throughout the process the client felt empowered and comfortable investing in IT solutions, knowing that Community IT knew and understood their nonprofit culture, and was providing vendor-agnostic recommendations based on combined expertise in nonprofits and technology. Responsive Community IT staff provided answers to all client questions and guided them through the software selection and implementation all the way.
Community IT was able to help the client move to the right IT solution for them. We are always ready to support our clients face their real needs and constraints. We use our IT and nonprofit expertise to guide clients as they navigate their changing IT needs. You can be sure we are dedicated to the success of your mission and will help you find the solution that fits you.