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Disability Connect implements Salesforce NFP to support its growth trajectory, scale its services and to quantify the difference it makes in people’s lives.
Challenge
Constrained by outdated and manual legacy Access database technology with minimal reporting capability, Disability Connect needed a new modern technology solution that would allow it to bring together and draw on data to effectively report on its impact to the board, government, other funders and its members, to better connect with the community and to scale its services to meet increasing demand.
Mike Potter, Disability Connect’s CEO, says, “We needed a solution that would allow us to show the community impact we have, through data and statistics – not just for our government contracts but also so our members can see and be aware of what we do. The impact of COVID has also meant we need to provide more services to more people – more phone calls and more complex cases.”
Approach
Salesforce NFP was the right solution to “help us navigate these challenges”, Mike says. It also allowed for easy integration into Disability Connect’s mail automation solution, with customisations to accommodate specific requirements, such as online seminar and workshop bookings.
“The way that the Merkle team has worked with us has been fabulous. They’ve really taken the time to understand who we are – which, as a pan-disability organisation helping parents and children, isn’t easy,” he adds.
Results
Salesforce has already created efficiencies and time savings for the Disability Connect team, “freeing up our staff to do more of what we do well – like run a weekly support group,” he adds.
Benefits realised to date include:
- Improved reporting through the accuracy and immediacy of centralised information, effectively showing community impact through data
- Increased insight into community trends and needs, current and future
- Joined-up view of the organisation brings together a ‘big picture’ and allows greater visibility of information
- Ability to meet additional demand created through the impact of COVID
- Work efficiencies and time savings allow for value-add activity
- Democratisation of data entry
- The ability to create new scale, in particular with the addition of a new counselling service for parents of disabled children
- Privacy, security and compliance
- A future-proof solution to accommodate ongoing optimisation, such as improvements to the donations and payments process
Nothing's going to happen for disabled people in New Zealand without the data to back it up in the business case, and Salesforce is enabling us to do that. It is future-proofing Disability Connect for the services it offers – now and in the future – for parents of disabled children and disabled people themselves, to have choices and live great lives.Mike Potter, CEO, Disability Connect
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Merkle is a performance marketing agency with a 32-year track record of helping the best brands in the world create personalised experiences at every stage of the customer life cycle. As experts in data and technology, the agency helps organisations to transform their end-to-end customer experience. The team have strong strategic partnerships with Salesforce.com, Adobe and Google, allowing them to design, implement and manage the best customer experience solutions for clients.
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