SVP Austin Case Study: Hand to Hold
Delivering crucial support for NICU families
Hand to Hold® reduces barriers to support by investing in systems to better serve the NICU community.
Challenges
Inadequate donor tracking and relationship management system
Data quality and solution integration issues
Uncertainty about where to focus spending to make the system work
Solution
Work with SVP Austin to identify options to make their IT systems work
Identify capabilities and gaps in current system
Develop an RFP to identify alternate vendors
Results
Assessed options with current platform and vetted potential replacements
Confirmed that re-platforming was the most cost-efficient and strategic option
Positioned the organization to invest in IT consulting and ongoing tech support
Assisting NICU families with the resources they need
Austin-based Hand to Hold is a national nonprofit that provides personalized assistance before, during and after a NICU stay to help families thrive. Its services include personalized emotional support, educational resources and community. To remove barriers for NICU parents to access these resources at no cost, the organization needed a robust relationship management system to better support fundraising and donor development, manage volunteer and hospital contacts, and match NICU families. The current leadership team was dealing with a prior system that was difficult to use and wasn’t configurable to their needs. Hand to Hold engaged SVP to help evaluate the system, investigate changing platforms and prepare a path forward.
“Your generosity, your patience and your commitment [helped] us navigate what could have been an overwhelming process.”
Sofia Haralson, Hand to Hold Development Manager
Assessing the situation and identifying gaps
Hand to Hold’s SVP coaches performed a detailed analysis of the current relationship management solution and the organization’s needs. Hand to Hold needed a system that could:
Undergird a more professional fundraising effort with detailed information on donors and prospects, an accurate history of contact and giving, etc.
Automate and track communications with stakeholders, including volunteers and hospital contacts, to improve service delivery and the communication flow
Ease the administrative burden of other nuanced tasks
The assessment uncovered significant gaps between the platform’s capabilities, and current configurations and use requirements.
Exploring options
Equipped with the analysis, the SVP coaches and Hand to Hold partners engaged several platform partners to investigate integration opportunities and the time and cost required to implement them. It became clear that the financial cost of staying with the current system was prohibitive for two reasons:
Price: The cost to clean up data and complete other tasks to prepare for integrations was significant and there was no budget allocated for the work. Additionally, the annual subscription fee was increasing dramatically. While some of the work could be handled internally, it would come at a high administrative cost, taking staff and volunteers away from service delivery and strategic tasks.
Time: Completing the work to enable the integrations would take at least a year, seriously delaying the realization of the benefits and achieving ROI.
Choosing a path forward
“Being able to hear the perspectives of three different partners and learning the cost to maintain and repair our platform has been instrumental in this decision process,” notes Hand to Hold Development Manager Sara Harlson. “After discussion with leadership, we will be looking to pursue other options that allow us to optimize our resources.”
“I’m disappointed that our interactions have come to an end!”
Jenny Landry, Hand to Hold Growth & Peer Mentor Coordinator
