Vision Aid Overseas case study

Vision Aid Overseas is a UK charity dedicated to helping people in the developing world whose lives are blighted by poor eye sight, particularly in those cases where spectacles can help.

Traditionally VAO's work focused on running direct service clinics where optical professionals from the UK would travel to poor areas of Africa, test patients' eyes and dispense spectacles. This is an extremely effective way of reaching a great many people who desperately need spectacles to live an ordinary life. However, Vision Aid Overseas has expanded its work to include training and workshop development so that its target countries are provided with their own eye care service. Today, Vision Aid Overseas trains local doctors and other health care workers so that they can continue to help when the teams return to the UK.

Vision Aid Overseas has ambitious plans to expand support in the UK to increase its activity overseas, and is streamlining its processes in order to become more operationally efficient. It recently identified a need for a new application to replace their existing systems and methods of storing information, and to support its ambitious growth strategies selected ProgressCRM from Fisk Brett.

VAO knew that by centralising disparate databases, they would not only facilitate better internal communication and sharing of information, but they'd also provide better administrative support to their membership and fundraising operations. "There were other advantages too", explained Deputy Director Jeremy Jalie, who also heads up fundraising and IT at VAO. "We've improved the reporting facilities, the production of management information and increased our income."

To switch to ProgressCRM, the process started with a 'pre-implementation handover' which ensured that everyone involved had a clear understanding of the project objectives, their responsibilities, the implementation process and the deliverables. Then a detailed project plan was agreed and a project consultant assigned to the project. "The handover experience was extremely efficient and we were helped a lot by the Fisk Brett consultants.

VAO's previous system was extremely one dimensional in its handling of data and was unable to adapt to evolving needs. It had been designed in a time when fundraising was not a high priority and had virtually no methods of seeing who was giving or why - which meant we were unaware of some of the great information we already had! Progress has seriously helped us to inform our fundraising and other business processes."

"Today Progress handles virtually all of VAO's activity in one way of another. The fundraising information is vital and has helped us to make some key decisions in the last twelve months about what we should be pursuing. One of the great things about the product is that it is really flexible, and we have even shaped it to handle our project activity - a function that is extremely unique to VAO!"

Vision Aid Overseas now manages its members in ProgressCRM too. Members are the backbone of it's support network and provide VAO with a number of important services. The database handles the subscriptions for five levels of membership, from students at £10 a year, right up to 'Titanium' membership at £600 a year. Members not only raise the profile of Vision Aid Overseas in general, but also get actively involved in fundraising. Members collect money from the public via collecting boxes in optical practices and other workplaces; they speak at Rotary Clubs, ladies groups, schools etc; recruit other members; and take part in overseas projects. All the necessary details are managed in the CRM database.

"Working with ProgressCRM means that we can continue to grow, identify areas for increasing income and simultaneously save costs through improved methods of working," concludes Jeremy Jalie. "Nowadays, I can't imagine Vision Aid Overseas without it!"

For more information see www.vao.org.uk