Carers in Bedforshire
Carers in Bedfordshire (CiB), a carer support charity, had appointed a new CEO and she realised that the database used for client data and management information was a major risk.
It was dependent on one sub-contractor for any amendments and its features & functionality were severely lacking when compared to other charities running more modern systems.
She decided to call on the expertise within the staff team and the board of trustees to decide what the charity needed and to implement the change with the minimum necessary disruption to its clients.
Salesforce selected
After a thorough evaluation of the options, including discussions with other charities using various systems on the shortlist, it was decided to adopt Salesforce. CiB had recently received a substantial legacy and the board was therefore willing to fund a new Salesforce system, customised to meet the specific requirements of the charity.
Frazer Lewis & Rephrase
It was decided that Frazer Lewis would be contracted to implement Salesforce for CiB, including the database conversion. Both Frazer and the management team understood the importance of having a very clear set of requirements from the outset, and the need to have clean data for the migration to Salesforce. After an initial scoping exercise in September 2015, the project was given the go ahead with a clear focus on solving the problems the CEO had identified.
An excellent working relationship was quickly established between Frazer and the CiB’s project team. Effective communications and regular updates were also put in place across the charity – including with its staff, volunteers and trustees. Both the CEO and the project lead were fully engaged and highly committed to making the project a success.
Solution Development, Testing and Data Preparation
The initial Salesforce system was developed and thoroughly tested by Frazer before letting the staff and volunteers try it out in a safe environment. Their feedback was incorporated into the Salesforce implementation and it was soon ready to go. Further intense work on the client data from the older system was conducted. The charity’s staff team was able to remove duplicated records and perform various other corrections to the data revealed by early testing with Salesforce. Behind the scenes, Frazer was running multiple testing cycles, making the necessary corrections each time to ensure that everything was ready to go live.
Go-Live
Once everything was fully tested, it was decided to launch the Salesforce system while also maintaining the existing system as a fallback, if required. As a result of a very thorough requirements capture exercise and the meticulous approach to data migration, the implementation phase went very smoothly and the fallback arrangements didn’t need to be used.
Overall, the implementation of Salesforce for the charity was seen a big success and it provided the springboard for further significant innovation across the charity. This was due to the excellent approach taken both by Frazer and key people within CiB.
Graham Mills, Carers In Bedfordshire Trustee - 2014 to 2024