Background:
Jewish Family Services (JFS) of Washtenaw County is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing social services, counseling, and support to individuals and families in need. Founded in 1993, Jewish Family Services of Washtenaw County serves people of all religions, races, and ethnicities. Their mission is to create solutions, promote dignity, and inspire humanity. With a wide range of programs and services, including refugee resettlement, mental health counseling, transportation, a food pantry and nutrition services, JFS handles a significant volume of data related to client information, case histories, program statistics, and financial records.
Challenge:
The organization experienced staff changes, including a new Chief Development Officer, who realized that their existing CRM was not truly being used and had changed hands multiple times, resulting in a loss of institutional knowledge. “The system was antiquated and old, and it wasn’t able to do what we needed it to do,” said Melissa Goodson, Chief Development Officer at Jewish Family Services. Additionally, they were using nine different technologies that were not speaking to each other, this includes the donor database, volunteer database, email marketing, peer-to-peer fundraising and more. This resulted in manual work, difficulty with task completion, and limitations in data management and analysis.
The lack of tracking and institutional knowledge also resulted in embarrassing moments with donors, for example, “I can’t tell you how many times I was at a donor meeting and the donor let me know that they volunteer every week and I didn’t know! We had no record that they were a donor and a volunteer.” Nobody was tracking interactions. Additionally, the organization sent year-end appeal letters to the deceased and divorced couples as if they were still married. This was a result of institutional knowledge leaving with former staff members.
Solution:
Recognizing the need for a comprehensive software solution, JFS embarked on a search for new nonprofit software. Their key objectives were to centralize data management, automate repetitive tasks, improve reporting capabilities, enhance collaboration among team members and communicate effectively with constituents and donors. “The one source is really important and especially for the institutional knowledge side of things. We really wanted to focus on having one landing place for how we work with all of our people.”
After careful evaluation, JFS selected Giveffect, a 10-in-one connected nonprofit software, to be their one source of truth.
Data Migration and Onboarding
On day one of working with Giveffect, JFS was assigned their dedicated data migration specialist and their client success account manager. “Once we said yes, things moved very smoothly and very quickly. I was very happy with how it all went!
Data Migration:
JFS collaborated closely with the Giveffect Account Manager and Migration Specialist to develop a detailed migration plan. They exported data from all nine software systems as CSV files and uploaded them into Giveffect. The Data Migration Specialist mapped the data to the correct fields, and JFS reviewed and approved the mapping. Once approved, the Giveffect Migration Specialist completed the data migration. JFS reviewed the migrated data, validated and tested it, and had the opportunity to ask questions or make changes. “The migration went super smooth and very quickly. Surprisingly the information was in there in like 10 days, if not sooner than that. It went really quickly.” The JFS team was also able to start inputting new data to begin working within Giveffect in real time.
Onboarding:
JFS engaged with a dedicated Giveffect Customer Success Account Manager for five onboarding sessions, completing them in an expedited timeline by request. Training sessions familiarized the staff with Giveffect’s features and functionalities. Giveffect provided support and answered questions throughout the process. “Ahead of the meetings they shared what we were going to walk through, and all the different videos and modules. Then each week Jack (Customer Success Specialist) would send us a reminder of what we’re going to be speaking about during that onboarding session. Everyone was just really available and accessible to us to ask questions.” The structured onboarding sessions allowed JFS to add specific account information and begin utilizing the software effectively right away. They began adding information in real-time and setting up items such as account information, website information, and thank you notes “Giveffect is so plug and play.”
“Jack’s great. We really love his energy. And the way that he was able to teach us things is really engaging. It was a running joke around here that our favorite meeting of the week was our Giveffect onboarding meeting.”
Results:
With Giveffect, the JFS team has increased their productivity and efficiency. While they are still in the early stages of using the platform, they have started to run campaigns and found the platform to be highly effective. One notable example is the automation of setting up monthly recurring ACH withdrawals for supporters. Previously, they lacked records and had to manually process credit card payments monthly. “We’d have to literally plug the credit card number in monthly. And we didn’t have the records to know which to process.” Now, the entire process is automated, freeing up time and ensuring timely processing. Additionally, their Community Outreach and Digital Engagement Coordinator who owns their digital and data upkeep was able to automate many of the manual tasks that took up a large percentage of his time, and now he has the bandwidth to take on new projects. The integration and automation capabilities of Giveffect have streamlined their work and improved overall efficiency.
“We are working on a cultural change—if it’s not in Giveffect, it didn’t happen.”
Additional Results
Throughout the entire onboarding process, data migration, and ongoing relationship with JFS, Giveffect maintains a strong focus on fostering an open feedback loop, allowing for continuous innovation and support. When JFS started utilizing Giveffect and identified an additional need for personalizing their thank you letters they shared this feedback with their dedicated Customer Success Account Manager. Giveffect listened and understood JFS’s needs and how other nonprofits might benefit from such a feature as well. The Giveffect Product team promptly prioritized JFS’s request and added it to the development queue.
In just a few short weeks, Giveffect released a new update that fulfilled JFS’s personalization needs by introducing additional merge fields to further enhance customization options for their thank-you letters. “Giveffect’s responsiveness and commitment to meeting our needs have truly impressed us. Giveffect’s dedication to customer satisfaction and continuous improvement shines through in every step of their partnership with us.”
Learn more about how Giveffect can help you transform your team’s data management with seamless data migration and helpful onboarding. Schedule your demo today!