26 Feb 2008
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) UK needed to invest in a
modern, user-friendly CRM database to enhance its fundraising
innovation and performance.
Offering a hosted solution with broad
functionality and immense scope for expansion, the CARE package
from IRIS was the software of choice for MSF UK. CARE has
transformed MSF UK’s business by providing the organisation with a
single view on its supporters and allowing the fundraising team to
concentrate on the essentials.
Organisation Profile
Médecins Sans Frontières is an independent
international medical humanitarian organization that delivers
emergency aid in more than 70 countries to people affected by armed
conflict, epidemics, natural or man-made disasters or exclusion
from health care.
MSF was born in the early 1970’s out of the
exasperation of a group of French doctors who worked in desperate
conditions in the Biafra War. Thirty years from its establishment,
the MSF movement was awarded the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize.
To be able to speak and act freely, MSF is
completely independent of any political, religious or economic
powers. It provides medical assistance solely on the basis of need
and does not take sides in conflicts.
The MSF UK office was established in London in
1993. It supports MSF's field work by recruiting volunteers,
collecting donations and raising awareness of humanitarian crises
through the media. A specialist medical team works directly with
the field projects to help solve urgent clinical problems.
Business Challenge
The year 2005 saw the turning point in MSF
UK’s business. Its existing bespoke database needed to be replaced,
as it prevented the organisation from achieving its objectives and
limited its fundraising innovation and performance. To support the
development and growth of the organisation, MSF UK decided to
invest in a modern software package catering for all its
requirements.
James Kliffen, Head of Fundraising at MSF UK
comments: “We opted for a hosted solution providing a secure
remote access to concurrent users, as we don’t have a big IT team
to support an in-house database and we wanted to get the new system
up and running rapidly and cost-effectively. Furthermore, we wanted
to move to a packaged solution that was proven and tested by
similar organisations as well as continuously developed to meet
best practises in the fundraising sector”.
Having undergone a thorough business process
mapping exercise, MSF UK went on to shortlist ten potential
suppliers, three of which they invited to demonstrate their
products. After carefully reviewing the offerings against
predetermined functional and service requirements, MSF UK made the
final decision to select the CARE CRM & Fundraising package
from IRIS in 2005.
Solution Deployed
CARE was the solution of choice for MSF UK,
because it offered broad functionality, a true off-the-shelf
package and a great scope for future expansion. Furthermore, CARE
was selected due to the hosting service and expertise it provided,
allowing the charity to spare its limited resources and concentrate
on its core business.
As MSF UK had little information in its
existing database and therefore had no need for a cumbersome data
mapping exercise, it was able to implement CARE within the tight
timeline in four months. CARE went live in November 2005 with the
core contacts management and financial processing, providing MSF UK
with a powerful CRM functionality.
“The data migration process was
straightforward and made us undergo a crucial data cleaning
exercise, significantly improving our data integrity. Whilst we
only deployed the core modules, CARE offers us more functionality
than we currently need, leaving huge scope for extension as we
change and grow”, says James Kliffen.
Implementing CARE has meant a steep learning
curve for MSF UK. Not only has the organisation learnt how to
better exploit its data, it has also been able to streamline its
business processes by exploiting the great flexibility in the
system. Furthermore, the charity is continuously working to
maintain the quality of its data, which is essential to the success
of its external communications and supporter relationship
management.
Benefits Achieved
MSF UK began to see the benefits from the CARE
database early on after the go live. CARE has helped MSF UK to
considerably improve its efficiency and cost-effectiveness, halving
the time spent to managing its key processes. More importantly, the
quality of service has improved, as the great level of automation
in CARE frees up the staff time, enabling them to concentrate on
interacting with supporters.
James Kliffen elaborates: “As we rely on
regular givers, supporter care is everyone’s duty at MSF UK.
Introducing CARE has been good for the team morale, as the system
helps us to deliver a better service all around. With full access
to relevant information, each member of the team is able to pull
out the supporter’s details, have a meaningful chat with them and
instantly provide the service requested.”
As a comprehensive tool for managing supporter
communications, CARE has enabled MSF UK to significantly improve
the accuracy of its mailings and analyse the effectiveness of its
campaigns. Providing MSF UK with a better understanding of its
supporter base, CARE has helped the organisation to realise some
underlying factors behind donor behaviour and loyalty.
“We’ve realised that regular communication
between asks is the key for us, indirectly helping to drive the
supporter lifetime value up. The longer you leave after the first
gift the warmer supporters are, as they feel we don’t treat them
like a consumer that has to be sold to. Our newsletters are
considered to be inspiring and authentic, informing supporters
about our work and the great things they help us to accomplish,
which encourages them to continue donating to us”, says James
Kliffen.
The powerful segmenting and profiling tools in
CARE have given MSF UK a deeper insight into its data. “CARE’s
analysing and reporting capabilities are incredibly sophisticated.
The selections and analyses we have done with CARE are basic but
fundamental, directly contributing to our fundraising performance.
Covering geographic, demographic and lifestyle profiling, CARE
helps us to better target our campaigns and achieve our goals more
easily and cost-effectively”, says James Kliffen
“In 2006 we ran a targeted campaign to our
major givers off the back of analysing their profiles with CARE,
which generated an extra £700,000 income. This demonstrates how
CARE has enabled us to bring major donors closer to the MSF field
work, strengthening their engagement with the organisation”,
James Kliffen continues.
The IRIS CARE team cooperates closely with MSF
UK to help it derive the maximum value from its data. The charity
is planning to expand its installation beyond the core CRM in 2008,
exploiting the breadth of functionality and web integration that
CARE offers. Future plans also include the introduction of the CARE
Smart Client version, which will provide MSF UK with flexibility to
access the database remotely.
“The MSF UK case study proves how small
charities with fairly limited resources can also benefit from fully
integrated CRM. CARE offers a continuous upgrade path, first class
support and a user friendly interface, delivering a cost-effective,
low risk solution meeting the needs of any voluntary organisation.
We are proud to be associated with MSF UK as their technology
partner and look forward to continuously supporting their important
work”, says Carrie Goodbourn, CARE Managing Director at
IRIS.
James Kliffen and his team have enjoyed their
cooperation with IRIS and are pleased with the partnership.
“CARE is an enabler allowing us to concentrate on our core
processes, not driving our business. We have been very impressed by
the professionalism of the CARE team, offering us the expertise we
need and lack to streamline our business. CARE has truly
transformed the way MSF UK works and we’re continuing to build on
that”.
