Children's Hospital Trust

"Having JCA professionals here has been wonderful. We have a clear understanding of the project timelines, deliverables, and the purpose for each activity."

Shelley Brown,
Senior Director of Operations
Children's Hospital Trust

The Children's Hospital Trust acts as the philanthropic arm of Children's Hospital Boston, the nation's leading children's hospital.

In order to manage their more than sixty million dollars in donations, the Trust had recently upgraded its fundraising database to The Raiser's Edge® and they turned to JCA for help optimizing their new system.

The Trust's operations are complex, with over sixty staff members managing a broad range of functions: major gifts, planned giving, special events, cause marketing, annual fund, research and direct marketing. The recent upgrade to The Raiser's Edge® provided an excellent opportunity to reassess how its capabilities were fulfilling the Trust's needs. We analyzed their gift processing procedures and improved their operations by reducing the time spent entering and exporting reporting data.

We took a three-pronged approach, focusing on staff needs, gift entry and cross-departmental operational processes. First, staff members from each functional area were invited to provide input regarding the data they required. From these sessions, we were able to map the information flow at the Trust. Next, we evaluated The Raiser's Edge® gift entry procedures and worked with fundraising staff to ensure all stakeholders were optimizing their use of this powerful system's capabilities. Working together, we helped Trust staff reduce the amount of time they spent getting information into and out of the database.

Our last step was to perform a thorough evaluation of the Trust's database for efficiency. We ran a bottom-up analysis, called a Codes Frequency Report which demonstrated how gift data had been entered into the system. We identified specific data to be restructured and cleansed. Once we had clean data and streamlined processes in place, we were able to make customizations to the system to meet the Trust's particular needs.

When the project was completed, everyone involved understood how to use the new system efficiently and effectively. Processes were documented and standardized across departments and reporting was reliable, easy and aligned with the Trust's strategic objectives.