Ongoing year on year growth has meant that their existing database had become less well suited to the organisation’s more demanding requirements. So a fresh approach was needed to enable WWT to support a broader range of initiatives and to implement more efficient processes. Following a robust tender process, thankQ CRM software was selected to help WWT achieve its objectives.

In the main, the WWT Supporter Relationship Management system is used for supporter income generation through its management of membership and other committed giving schemes, in addition to fundraising in the form of donations and grants from individuals, trusts and organisations and legacy income. Supporter recruitment is another key objective for the Marketing & Supporter Development Directorate and WWT is using a wide range of marketing channels to achieve this objective.

WWT currently engages with over 15 different supporter groups, including visitors, members, VIPs, corporate patrons, bird adopters, volunteers and grant making bodies and trusts, to name a few. thankQ’s ability to easily manage these diverse relationships and the differing requirements of each, all within a single database, was a key factor in WWT’s decision making processes.

Another attractive feature for WWT was thankQ’s ability to integrate and interface easily with the majority of commonly used systems, and in particular thankQ’s digital integration capability. This will allow WWT to continue to use third party bulk emailing tool, MailChimp, and online donation site JustGiving, with key campaign and donation data from each being automatically pulled back into thankQ.

Similarly, web integration will allow members and supporters a self service experience, whilst at the same time giving WWT a real time view of supporter and member online activity. Linking with WWT’s EPOS system will enable integration of visitor, member and supporter data within thankQ.

WWT was keen to improve visibility of financial data between the finance and fundraising functions and reduce unnecessary re-keying of financial data. To this end, WWT was particularly reassured by thankQ’s robust data validation processes, which allow automatic sharing of relevant financial data between functions, with checks in place to eliminate processing errors.

Ray Clark, WWT Head of Regular Giving, said of the appointment, ‘in implementing thankQ, we will be able to collate a vast amount of data from a really diverse range of channels and sources, to give us a genuine 360^o view of supporter activity. Our intention is to translate this wealth of knowledge into actionable insights to drive an ever better experience for our supporters, members and visitors and an assured future for our wetlands and the wildlife they support’.  

The new look thankQ website incorporates some of the core design elements from Access Group, whilst retaining much of its quirky imagery which has become synonymous with the thankQ brand.

The refreshed website comes in the same year that thankQ celebrates its 21^st birthday, and thankQ Marketing Manager, Samantha Gibson tells us why the new design represents a coming of age for the organisation. Samantha explained, ‘the more restrained elements of the website reflect the maturity of the thankQ product and the increased responsibility that comes with looking after a rapidly growing customer base.  The relationship with Access Group also gives prospects and customers the assurance of a trusted partnership that delivers stability and longevity’.

As the Access Group nfp division matures, thankQ customers will be able to choose from a growing number of specialist not for profit solutions which, it is planned, will deliver end to end functionality across functions and meet the business needs of not for profit organisations of any size or speciality. 

John Bird, Head of thankQ said of the relationship, ‘In essence thankQ hasn’t changed. Our culture and values are the same as they ever were, and that is why we have made sure that the character, content and personality of our website remains unchanged. But there is a new assurance that comes with our relationship with Access Group which we want to convey and want our customers and prospects to feel reassured by’.  

The charity is known as a Centre of Excellence for cutting edge community music, engaging over 1,000 disadvantaged children, young people and vulnerable adults with over 50 weekly activities, delivered by up to 25 music leaders.

PMZ holds nearly 8,000 participant contact records on an Access database, nearly all of whom require restricted access rights around protecting vulnerable people. An Outlook database holds a further 2,000 contacts of partners and stakeholders. There is no supporter and donor database, with gifts being recorded with paper filing and records.

The charity recognised that there would be substantial benefit in bringing these three core areas together into one integrated system, so, when the charity was awarded Arts Council England Catalyst funding, it was decided that part of the funding would be used to create a robust yet flexible CRM system to bring together data on participants, supporters and stakeholders in order to manage relationships effectively and sustainably.

PMZ selected thankQ CRM as it is a modular solution that is flexible and scalable and so can grow along with its charitable activity and fundraising. thankQ functionality will help PMZ develop a number of income generating activities, including individual giving, major donor development, trusts and grants fundraising and legacy management. In addition, thankQ will help PMZ improve its business processes, notably the capacity to quickly and easily pull off KPI reports to enable effective project monitoring and evaluation, in addition to impact measurement.

thankQ’s integration with Twitter and facebook will also give PMZ the ability to develop relationships on platforms that are relevant and accessible to their key audience.

Debbie Geraghty, Development Director for Plymouth Music Zone said of the appointment, ‘For us having a new CRM system is all about further developing and maximising the quality and impact of our work. A vital part of that is enabling our supporters and stakeholders to be more central to helping us reach out and transform people’s lives through music. We were very impressed with the capabilities and functionality of the thankQ system. In particular, the user interface and the potential integration with social media were big factors in our decision since we have such a growing online community’.

To ensure Queen Mary, University of London (QMUL) optimises its position within the Russell Group, ambitious investment plans have been put in place to further develop educational, research and estate capabilities, along with the development of a sophisticated alumni and stakeholder network, including comprehensive records and a programme of activities to maintain and nurture contacts, including details of over 120,000 alumni.

QMUL has recently established a Development Directorate which will incorporate Alumni Relations and Fundraising teams. To date there has been no single data-set where donation and supporter information can be accessed and so the university has also selected thankQ CRM and alumni software to bring coherence to its development operations.

thankQ’s ease of use was a major contributing factor to the purchasing decision. In choosing thankQ, QMUL recognised the urgent need to provide the development team with easy access to information required to plan, manage and achieve their strategic objectives, as well as putting a system in place that would keep pace with the ongoing development and increased sophistication of its  fundraising activities.

To this end, Queen Mary took the opportunity to not only purchase a comprehensive thankQ CRM, fundraising and alumni relations system, but also enhanced features and modules that will facilitate and integrate web, telethon, social media, bulk email and mobile campaigns with the thankQ database.

Andy Wood, Director of Development at Queen Mary said of the decision to purchase thankQ, ‘We are looking forward to joining a number of other UK universities as a thankQ client. Their solution, aside from the technical excellence and value of the product, will quickly allow us to better utilise our data in support of our strategic objectives in both fundraising and alumni/stakeholder engagement. I’m pleased to say that the decision to select thankQ was a unanimous one.’

thankQ has been working in partnership with the Canal and River Trust to develop a functionally rich volunteer with recruitment module which allows not for profit organisations to easily fulfil any type of opportunity, matching the volunteer roles with the skills, experience and, if applicable, the geographical location, of its volunteer database.

The new module will complement thankQ’s existing volunteer solution, with additional features which will help charities to fulfil more specialised, permanent roles which require a formal application and interview process.

With the thankQ volunteer module, charities will be able to accurately record and measure all volunteer activity which will enable them to demonstrate equivalent value in terms of time and impact.

Ruth Ruderham, Head of Fundraising at The Canal and River Trust said of the initiative ‘we are now able to use the thankQ database to calculate an accurate Lifetime Value for our supporters, taking into consideration all their involvement with us. This will be critical for us as we develop our fundraising strategy further, enabling us to make decisions based on long-term lifetime value not just immediate return on investment’.

In the near future, thankQ will be incorporating the SaaS aCloud functionality recently designed by the Access Group - this will enable volunteers to manage their expenses in real time and on any device.

As a result, Samaritans decided it was the right time to invest in a new fundraising and CRM system to support their fundraising strategy. The primary business objectives in selecting a new system were to simplify and streamline its current processes and to better integrate with the existing infrastructure, especially its finance package. In addition, the fundraising team wanted to be able to improve their reporting capability with the ability to easily produce generic, custom and ad-hoc reports. During the selection process, thankQ demonstrated a very close functional fit which would require very little configuration to fulfil the fundraising team’s requirements and bring together its disparate systems into a single integrated view.

The charity also placed a great deal of importance upon choosing a supplier with the right cultural fit. Daniel McAllister, Interim Direct Marketing Manager at Samaritans explained, “previous experience has taught us that the quality and culture of the supplying organisation is as critical to a successful project as the quality of the software product itself. thankQ demonstrated a flexible attitude and a willingness to work collaboratively with us to help clarify our needs, adapt our processes and show us how thankQ can help us achieve our objectives.” 

thankQ will handle all of the central charity’s CRM and fundraising activities, allowing Samaritans to improve its targeting and increase return on investment from its fundraising programme. These improvements will also lead to a deeper understanding of, and closer relationships with, its donors and stakeholders.

Chris Bayne, CEO for Access, commented, “Having worked closely with the not-for-profit sector for many years, we know that there is strong demand for tightly integrated finance and fundraising systems. With the acquisition of thankQ, Access is now able to offer a fully integrated best-of-breed solution bringing time and cost savings to our NFP customers and improving reporting of both financial and non-financial data.”

thankQ’s 230 customers – including well-known names such as BBC Children in Need and Citizens Advice – join Access’ NFP client base and will be looked after by sector specialists. “Our aim is to help charitable organisations focus their efforts on core activities – such as donor and fundraising management – and to ensure they are not burdened by administration and paperwork. We can now provide a fully-integrated solution that improves the speed and ease with which charities access and work with data, and integrate invoice and donation transactions to aid decision making through better reporting,” commented Chris.

The acquisition allows Access to strengthen its sector focus by leveraging the joint expertise in both companies and building on best practice in software development, implementation and support. NFP customers can now move away from manual data transfers between fundraising and finance systems and enhance their solution with collaborative, mobile and agile business intelligence.

John Bird, MD of thankQ, added, “Joining Access is a great opportunity for our customers and staff. It’s the perfect fit both in terms of approach and technology; their team understands the complexities of our market space and is passionate about what we’ve been looking to achieve. By fully integrating the Access and thankQ solutions, we’ll make a positive impact on the NFP sector by helping our customers improve the way they operate and gain greater efficiencies across their organisation. With the addition of Access’ HR solution, we can also help them make the most of their best asset – their people.”

Customers currently being served by thankQ will see their existing close working relationships further strengthened and supported by Access. Following a very successful launch of the Access cloud platform last week, thankQ customers will be able to take advantage of the Access aCloud solutions capabilities that are especially suited for the sector. aCloud gained 1,500 users within 48 hours of release, of which 20% are NFP’s. The release included aCloud Expense which allows organisations with fluctuating workforces (volunteers, seasonal staff, and temporary workers) to submit expenses anytime, on any devices, in an intuitive and cost-effective manner.

For more information on Access and its solution portfolio contact Diana Ellul-Grech on 0845 345 3300 or visit http://www.theaccessgroup.com.

Alternatively, keep up-to-date by following Access on:

Blog: http://www.theaccessgroup.com/access-blog.aspx
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/theaccessgroup
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/accessgroup

The new organisation, Together for Short Lives, brings together all those involved in children's palliative care, from the children, young people and families themselves to the professionals and organisations who provide the full range of care and support.

As a result of the merger, early in 2012, Together for Short Lives took the decision to invest in a thankQ CRM and membership system to manage communications, events, publication sales and membership management.

Together for Short Lives will primarily use the thankQ CRM database for correspondence with individuals and organisations, utilising the thankQ bulk email option to handle larger mailings. In addition, the charity will be using thankQ membership software to manage its diverse membership portfolio, linking with the charity’s SAGE accounts package to handle payment processing.

As well as managing events within thankQ, Together for Short Lives will be integrating their website with their thankQ database, ensuring that all online transactions, including membership applications and renewals, updates to contact information, event bookings and the purchase of resources is automatically updated directly into thankQ.

Because the charity will be using the standard application, thankQ was able to install the CRM, events and membership modules just 3 months after the initial enquiry, with web integration to follow in the next phase. 

Richard Carling, Director of Finances and Resources at Together for Short Lives said of the appointment, ‘Like the majority of charities, our budget for this project was finite. The thankQ team worked closely and flexibly with us right from the outset to understand our core requirements and deliver the functionality we need at a realistic price’.

Severn Hospice will also benefit from thankQ’s advanced contact management functionality, which will be further enhanced by integration with facebook and twitter. So, not only will the Hospice have the opportunity to communicate with supporters via mail, email and sms, they will also be able to find out who has been talking to them and about them on social media sites, and engage with their supporters on these platforms.

Severn Hospice is also planning to utilise thankQ dashboard reports to track and plan events, fundraising activities, mailing campaigns and much more besides.

Maria Cameron, Appeals Manager for Severn Hospice told us, ‘the opportunities thankQ will bring to the organisation are almost too many to take in. We have a fantastic fundraising team here and we’re looking forward to the challenge of maximising every single opportunity that thankQ presents’.

John Storer House provides vital support for individuals, groups and organisations who want to get involved in community action and volunteering - whether it be keeping fit or keeping in touch, gaining a skill or receiving emotional support from like-minded people  - John Storer House is a vibrant, lively hub in the heart of the Loughborough community.

In order to continue to provide its comprehensive and varied programme of activities, John Storer House relies heavily on revenue from room hire. However, until recently, its meeting rooms were looking rather tired and were in dire need of a makeover. Step in the thankQHQ volunteers, who, over two days, transformed as many rooms as possible from shabby to chic, painting walls, windowsills, doors, skirting boards – anything that didn’t move basically!

And following on from this activity, one of our volunteers felt inspired to write a blog for Leicestershire Cares, reflecting on the value of volunteering and of the essential service that John Storer House delivers to the whole community.

And in another first, the two organisations have developed an innovative warts and all web blog www.thankQ.co.uk/stories/stateside, which will document the real time experience of the implementation process right from the initial contract signing to the planned go live in May 2013.

Scripps College is an all women, four year liberal arts college which is part of a consortium of seven sister colleges based on the Oxford model. The College has 40,000 supporters, primarily consisting of parents and alumnae. The College was founded by Ellen Browning Scripps, a pioneering US philanthropist of British descent who was an influential figure in the world of education, publishing and women’s rights.

Fundraising is an important income stream for Scripps College, and today the college enjoys an endowment of over $225 million. Fundraising activity is shared between six distinct areas:  alumni relations, major gifts, annual fund, research, development services and stewardship. The Advancement Services department has been using a college-wide database but recently decided to invest in a customised system, developed specifically for fundraising and alumni relations.

thankQ will support the college’s traditional fundraising activities, and will also allow Scripps to manage in-house telethons, improve alumni relationship management and optimise the user experience with website integration.

George Trindle, Assistant Director of Advancement Services at Scripps College said of the appointment, ‘thankQ impressed us with its advanced functionality and comprehensive integration, but also gave us incredible value for money. Understandably, our due diligence was pretty intensive, and thankQ came through that with flying colours’.

John Bird, Managing Director of thankQ told us, ‘Scripps College is a fantastic organisation and we are really delighted they’ve put their trust in us. Obviously we owe it to Scripps to build a meaningful customer base in the US and we are really pleased that they will be championing us there. However, we also see this as a great opportunity for our UK customers. The US has a very different approach to philanthropy and we are in a fantastic position to share best practice from both continents. He added, ‘It’s an exciting time for us and well deserved, as we have an incredible team’. 

thankQ customer, Sands is the first to try the module and their Fundraising Manager, Carolyn Bray tells us how she believes the module will revolutionise the way in which the charity engages with its supporter base.Sands is a national charity that supports anyone affected by the death of a baby and promotes research to reduce the loss of babies’ lives. Sands was founded in 1978 by a small group of bereaved parents devastated by the death of their babies, particularly by what they felt was a complete lack of acknowledgement and understanding of the significance and impact of their loss.

Since that time Sands has supported many thousands of families whose babies have died, offering emotional support, comfort and practical help. Currently 17 babies die every day in the UK (11 are stillbirths, 6 are neonatal deaths) totalling almost 6,500 baby deaths a year - the equivalent of 16 jumbo jets crashing every year with no survivors. Tragically the stillbirth rate has remained almost unchanged in the UK for the past 10 years.

The charity has seen rapid growth in recent years. JustGiving, in particular, is hugely important to the charity, facilitating their largest income stream. In each of the last 3 years there has been a 50% increase in activity. Today, Sands receives well over ½ million donations annually via the JustGiving platform alone.  

The Sands fundraising team, whilst hugely dedicated, is still relatively small, especially in comparison to other similar sized charities. Prior to implementing thankQ, the team worked with six different basic access databases, importing financial data from JustGiving by manually reconciling spreadsheets line by line. This was extremely laborious, and, whilst registered fundraisers could be acknowledged, the team did not have the time nor the resources to identify any new fundraisers – and even if they had, they didn’t have the time to do anything to develop those relationships further.

Carolyn explains her frustration with the situation: “Last year, nearly 1,500 new fundraising pages were created, attracting a little over 27,600 donations. I daren’t even consider how many of those indicated they’d like further contact from us. We can now think seriously about our supporter care procedures and embark on creating relationships with so many more people. “

Carolyn recalls the first time she saw the thankQ JustGiving module “From what I can remember, during the demo the system identified between 30-40 new people. Historically we would have needed to manually type in their details to our database. Now they seamlessly drop into thankQ and we can automatically send them an email of thanks.  Almost with the touch of a button, all the time we were taking doing the manual work is freed.”

Carolyn explained that the team is almost overwhelmed by the possibilities now before them: “For the first time ever, we can capture the details of individuals who have donated to a JustGiving page and who want further information about Sands. We’ve never before had the capability or capacity to do anything with that level of information. To put some figures to it; the last financial year we received 1,490 individual direct donations generating in excess of £64,500. Of these donors 723 indicated they would like further contact from us.  For the first time ever, the ability to capture this data and engage with each one has become a reality for us.”

Sands do not organise fundraising events themselves and previously relied on reports from JustGiving to establish when and how many new Sands fundraising pages had been set up. They weren’t able to pull in details of those people who had donated to those pages and who were potential Sands supporters in their own right.

Carolyn talks about her hopes for the future: “For as long as I have known we have been incredibly reactive and now we can really embark upon the reality of being proactive for the first time ever. It’s the beginning of a long road and I’m full of positive apprehension about the future. For far too long I’ve felt sheer frustration at our inability to acknowledge properly and in many cases even at all, the support and generosity of the thousands of important people that we have failed to respond to. Now, at last we can begin to engage with them, and that is just fantastic!” 

As well as allowing charities to directly import supporter and donation data, the payment import process has a rich set of capabilities, including:

• assisting charities to process Gift Aid as well as donations
•  managing donations that aren’t against a particular page
•  automatically detecting Direct Debits and setting up a thankQ pledge so that the income is included  in project reports
• automatic contact de-duping
• automatically saving additional addresses and emails for existing contacts.

Sands is currently reviewing its systems across the board, and Carolyn admits that they still have a long way to go before they have a full appreciation of what will be possible. She told us: “We’ve only just scratched the surface of what we can do with this. It’s going to be a lot of work and the potential is enormous, but it’s an exciting and positive journey that we are embarking upon thanks to thankQ and JustGiving!”

For every #ioftech tweet, thankQ promised to donate 50p to charity (up to a value of £250). The IoFTechSiG delegates really got into the spirit of things, tweeting enthusiastically, and reaching the £250 target with just minutes to go before the end of the conference.  That’s over 500 tweets folks!

As an added twist, delegates were asked to vote for their favourite charity to receive the donation at the end of the day, again via Twitter.  A tense competition ensued as The Cardinal Hume Centre and ABF The Soldiers’ Charity went viral, garnering as many votes as they could from their supporters. With only one hour to go, it was neck and neck until ABF The Soldiers’ Charity began to pull ahead, proving clear winners in the end.

On winning the Twitter competition, Oliver Davey, at ABF The Soldiers’ Charity said:

"A big thank you goes to all the supporters of The Soldiers' Charity @soldierscharity.org  who took the time to tweet us to victory in thankQ's online competition at this year’s Institute of Fundraising Technology conference #ioftech. The prize money will go towards the Charity's vital work supporting soldiers, former soldiers and their families in times of need."

thankQ is indebted to the Institute of Fundraising who came up with the idea for the sponsorship. It was a great way to engage delegates in the social media space and a fantastic example of best practice in social media marketing. But, what really sold the idea to thankQ was the fact that the proceeds were going to be used to support a charity organisation, and as a company that is committed to CSR, that is exactly the sort of activity we want to be involved in. 

The law which applies to how organisations may use cookies and similar technologies for storing information on users' PCs was adopted on 26 May 2011, and now, a year later, the Information Commissioner's Office is looking for organisations to show that they comply.

We've made a slight change to our own website so that as you login to the Customer Area you are made aware that this area of the website uses session-only non-intrusive cookies and that by logging in you are consenting to their use. We also provide you with a clickable link to view further details of the cookies that will be used and how they are used.

The thankQ web portal uses cookies in much the same way as the Customer Area, so if you'd like to talk to us about implementing something similar in your own thankQ portals then please get in touch with us.

The Nicholas Corah Memorial Cup for Leicestershire Cares Company of the Year was presented to thankQ’s  CSR Manager, Rose Farris, by Lady Gretton the Lord-Lieutenant of Leicestershire at a prestigious awards ceremony at Leicester’s Guild Hall. 

Leicestershire Cares is an organisation which provides volunteering opportunities for businesses wishing to get involved with communities in the Leicestershire and Rutland areas.

Since joining Leicestershire Cares in 2011 thankQ has been involved in a broad range of education volunteering opportunities, including assisting local schoolchildren with literacy and numeracy skills and providing interview practice for school leavers.  

thankQ volunteers have also undertaken three very different  Team Challenges - a garden makeover at Ratby Pre-School, organising a Christmas party for children with learning difficulties at Glebe House and re-decorating the community meeting rooms at John  Storer House.

Rose Farris, CSR Manager at thankQ, said of the win, “I was honoured to accept this award on behalf of the team at thankQ. We are a small company but absolutely dedicated to making a difference in our community. All our staff get involved in these activities – even if they can’t physically take part, they will always dig deep to help us raise the cash to ensure our team challenges are a success.”

The charity, which represents local hospices across the UK and supports the development of hospice and palliative care around the world, needed a bespoke new system to support its growing fundraising activities.

For many years, Help the Hospices worked with a system which was originally implemented to manage corporate communications. Although the system was subsequently configured to manage some fundraising functions, it was never meant to be a bespoke fundraising system and consequently the fundraising team found it extremely difficult to use in the way they needed.

So, in January 2010 the organisation took the decision to implement a complete, fully configured fundraising system to manage all of its fundraising activity, consisting of contact management, fundraising and event management, plus payroll giving management and income data entry.

Help the Hospices also saw the benefit of integrating their website with the new system, providing a seamless user experience for their members, as well as further improving and simplifying the event management process for staff. 

Help the Hospices shortlisted three suppliers who could demonstrate a close fit with their initial requirements and following a robust selection process, thankQ was appointed. thankQ Sales Manager, Graham Hewitt told us, ‘Hospices are facing many challenges at the moment, and we are seeing more and more hospices come to us because they recognise the importance of a fundraising system that not only streamlines business processes, but that allows them to manage the fundraising fundamentals really easily’.

Although most of Help the Hospices’ requirements were already met in standard thankQ modules, some bespoke configuration was included to manage data imports and to enable the web portal and events modules to run alongside Help the Hospices’ existing website.  

Peter Rutland, Head of ICT at Help the Hospices said of the appointment, ‘as the membership organisation for the hospice sector, it is vital that we give our staff the tools they need to best represent and support our 219 member hospices. We look forward to continuing our work with thankQ to streamline our activities through their platform.’   

CPRE was looking for a CRM solution that would bring together campaigning, communication and fundraising data into one place and facilitate better relationships from this improved view of their stakeholders.

Ease of use was a big consideration for CPRE. They recognised that in order to bring about a cultural change within the organisation, users would need to have confidence in the chosen system. CPRE also wanted a CRM system that would simplify their reporting processes, improve relationship management and member/donor stewardship, whilst also integrating easily with other systems and processes.

CPRE selected thankQ as it fulfilled their technical and operational requirements, delivering both advanced functionality and ease of use. The modular nature of the product and its ability to integrate with most commonly used office systems was also a key factor in the decision making process.

Linda Allen, Director of Fundraising says, ‘Choosing a CRM solution that was easy for our staff to adopt as well as one that met the functional needs of the organisation was important to us. As well as the software providing value for money, the thankQ team also demonstrated a flexible approach to understanding our needs and working with us which made them the right company for us.’

About two thirds of Castel Froma residents have sustained a brain injury following a traumatic accident or as a result of a medical problem.  Others suffer from Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease or other degenerative neurological conditions. The youngest resident is 22, and the oldest, 91.

In addition to 24-hour nursing care, Castel Froma offers physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and speech and language therapy to help residents to retain their independence for as long as possible.

It costs £3.5m every year to provide such quality, long-term care and although Castel Froma receives income from the NHS to cover basic costs, £260,000 is needed each year to provide additional equipment, rehabilitation and therapy support, and social activities for residents.

Up until September 2011 the organisation did not actively fundraise, existing almost exclusively on legacy and endowment gifts. But when it became clear that the building was no longer fit for purpose, the organisation decided that a long-term fundraising strategy was imperative. As a result, a Fundraising Director, Susie Murray, was appointed to spearhead the organisation’s fundraising activities.

Susie knew that a CRM system was fundamental in creating a high performing fundraising department and so began to search for a provider. As a small charity with no fundraising history, Susie’s main priority was to get a flexible, cost effective solution that could grow with the organisation. Susie explained, ‘I was immediately impressed with how user friendly the software was. thankQ was head and shoulders above the competition in that respect, and that was such an important consideration for us’.

Castel Froma will be using thankQ to handle its fundraising and events activities as part of an ambitious plan to raise £7million for a new building and to provide a long-term future for the organisation and the care of its residents. Susie is confident that thankQ is the right partner for the job, telling us, ‘I would really recommend thankQ. Even though it’s early days for us, I can fast forward three years and see how thankQ will help me to monitor and grow all our traditional fundraising areas and how it will take us from a start-up to a multi-million pound charity’.

Castel Froma is actively seeking opportunities to develop new and exciting partnerships. If you would like to get involved, please call Susie Murray on 01926 427 216 or email susie.murray@castelfroma.org.uk.

In addition to a thriving membership, the Iona Community holds regular events and meetings, produces a broad range of resources and runs a retail operation.

The Iona Community began its search for a new CRM solution in April 2011. People engage with the community in a wide range of ways, as Members and Associate Members, as Friends, as Volunteers and through a variety of particular areas of activity, and the team was looking for a system that could handle the complexities of these different levels of engagement easily and efficiently, acknowledging that some people may have multiple memberships and managing segmentation and mailing programmes accordingly.

Another important consideration for the Community was website integration. They wanted to provide a self service facility for their members, giving them the facility to update their details, book and pay for events and manage their membership online. Finally, the Community wanted to their CRM system to be able to manage a full events programme which it runs in the UK and occasionally further afield.

thankQ has considerable experience in providing membership software and over the years has incorporated many features and advanced functionality into its membership and events modules. As such, thankQ was able to give The Iona Community all the functionality they wanted, within its standard product.

Robert Swinfen, Support services Manager at The Iona Community said of the appointment, ‘our membership is diverse and complex and our primary concerns were whether we could get the functionality we needed at a price we could afford. thankQ is based on commonly used office systems, so it looks and feels familiar, but the functionality is seriously impressive. This gave us the reassurance we needed, and at the right price’.     

Not content with achieving ‘rugby legend’ status during an illustrious sporting career, in 2009 Lawrence set up The Dallaglio Foundation, whose aim is to identify, support and raise funds for cancer and youth development causes that will change lives through teamwork.

And because Lawrence applies the same dedication to his charity work as he did to his sporting career, the organisation has gone from strength to strength, and last year began the search for a CRM and fundraising system to support its various programmes and operations and to ensure all their supporters had a positive experience with the charity.

Despite its high profile figurehead, The Dallaglio Foundation is run by a small, dedicated team with little network infrastructure. The priority for the team was to find a cost effective, hosted solution which had standard functionality that would suit their needs.

The modular nature of thankQ meant that The Dallaglio Foundation was able to buy the fundraising, CRM, finance and events modules to meet their immediate needs, adding on functionality as the organisation continues to flourish.

CEO, Rachel Roxburgh said of the decision, ‘The Dallaglio Foundation is all about achieving through teamwork. thankQ not only gave us the functionality we were looking for as standard, for the whole team, at an affordable price, but also worked with our IT supplier to agree a suitable hosted solution’.

http://www.dallagliofoundation.com/

So the announcement of £100m being made available to the culture sector via a new private giving investment programme, Catalyst, must have come as welcome relief.  The Catalyst programme is made up of investment from Arts Council England, Heritage Lottery Fund and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

The aim of the Catalyst funding is to offer organisations ‘the opportunity to move their fundraising and development expertise on to the next level, whatever their current starting point’.

Unsurprisingly, many culture organisations have recognised that in order to develop their fundraising processes and to create real business efficiencies, they need to invest in fundraising software, and we are delighted that so many culture organisations have shown an interest in thankQ software during their selection process.

thankQ software has been designed solely for the not for profit sector and is perfect for marketing, fundraising and membership. thankQ is ideal for arts and culture organisations from theatre groups to galleries and museums, ballet companies to orchestras.  

The closing date for the £55m worth of Catalyst Endowment funding has now passed and we wish everyone who applied for funding the very best of luck.

However, arts and heritage organisations can still apply for the £30m Catalyst Arts funding Scheme (closing date 31 January 2012) and for  Catalyst Arts and Catalyst Heritage fundraising capacity building grants (applications open: 1 April 2012).

We would be happy to provide information, cost estimates and advice for any arts organisation applying for funding through the Catalyst programme with the specific aim of investing in fundraising software.

Yet that is just the position thankQ application developer Michael Hutchinson found himself in as he gamely volunteered to take the starring role in the thankQ festive challenge, which the company took on as part of its Leicestershire Cares membership.

Having already completed a gardening team challenge over the summer, the festive challenge called for a completely different range of skills, as we were tasked with organising a Christmas party for 16 children with a range of learning difficulties at Glebe House in Loughborough.

thankQ Sales and Marketing Assistant, Laura Houghton was an obvious choice as team leader, using all of her creative and skills to ensure the party was a great success.  As well as a glitter strewn crafts table, the children took part in a lively game of pass the parcel, before hitting the dance floor with the thankQ team, who showed off some pretty neat dance moves. True to her name and role, thankQ support team member Angela Hart made a special connection with a young girl who did not make friends easily and liked lots of space around her. By the end of the day, she was holding hands and dancing with Angela, to the amazement of some of the centre staff. Eventually, a very nervous Santa made an appearance and was an instant hit. He spoke to all of the children as a group and individually by name, making them all feel very special.

Team Leader, Laura Houghton said of the experience ‘It was remarkably rewarding for me and I think everyone in my team. I’d happily do it every year and the feedback from the children was priceless’.

The festive challenge marks the end of a full and rewarding year working with Leicestershire Cares on various volunteering programmes. These have included individual volunteering opportunities helping students with their literacy, numeracy and interview skills. In addition we have taken part in two team challenges, which have been very different in nature. The broad range of skills needed for each of these these activities has ensured that 88% of thankQ staff felt able to get involved in one or more activity.

We are planning to do it all again this year and look forward to seeing what challenges Leicestershire Cares has in store for us. Elf, anyone?

I suspect that most of the thankQ staff who volunteered to take part in the Leicestershire Cares ‘Go for Reading’ scheme had their own reservations about being able to commit to a long term programme, even as they were putting their names down to take part!

thankQ joined the Leicestershire Cares scheme in 2011 following a long search for suitable volunteering opportunities. Leicestershire Cares delivers a broad range of flexible local programmes which organisations can choose to get involved with, taking into account the skills of their workforce, their ability to run programmes in-house or within the community and the level of volunteering they are able to commit to.

thankQ took on several individual and team volunteering opportunities, both ongoing and one-off, to provide enough variety to enable as many staff as possible to take part. 15 staff took part in ongoing programmes in local secondary schools, assisting students with literacy, numeracy and interview skills. An additional 23 staff volunteered for the team challenges; a school gardening project, and a Christmas Party for schoolchildren with learning disabilities. To date, 88% of thankQ staff have taken part in one or more volunteering opportunities through Leicestershire Cares alone.

 4 thankQ volunteers are taking part in the ‘Go for Reading’ programme which involves visiting a local secondary school for an hour a week to read with a selection of year 7 students with special education needs.

We were proud and delighted to see just how far the students have progressed in the last 26 weeks, not just in terms of their reading skills, but in their self confidence, behaviour and self-belief. In the latest feedback, the school reports that 75% of those involved have increased their reading age by 1 year, 12.5% have remained consistent and 12.5% have increased their reading age by a staggering 3 years. Significantly self-esteem and confidence has improved in 88% of children.

The children have also commented that they now enjoy reading more and feel happier about reading aloud in class. Most said that reading makes them feel happier.

One thankQ volunteer, Peter Conway commented that the most rewarding aspect of the programme for him was getting to know the children and seeing their confidence grow week on week. Oh, and getting the chance to show off his range of accents during the play readings!

For many years, thankQ has been demonstrating its commitment to society with environmental initiatives which include green commuting and taking part in the annual National Forest Business Benefit tree planting scheme - as well as supporting the local community through its membership of Leicestershire Cares. However, this is the first initiative that seeks to fulfil the company’s commitment to corporate social responsibility within the third sector.

Rose Farris, CSR Manager at thankQ told us: ‘CSR is certainly not a box ticking exercise. thankQ people take great pride in working for a company that genuinely believes in giving back. It’s part of the fabric of who we are’.

CEBF was launched in 2009 to support the 600,000 plus charity employees in the UK. In a sector which is largely dependent on funding, salaries are generally low and without the additional benefits commonly available to the rest of the UK workforce. As a result, the sector is especially hard-hit in times of recession. CEBF provides advice and financial assistance in times of hardship, acting as a safety net for charity employees and their families when in need.

As a relatively young organisation, the CEBF will start with a single user system to assist in its CRM, fundraising, mailing and donor management processes, trust application processes and grant administration, and will add functionality as the organisation matures.

John Bird, Managing Director of thankQ said: ‘As thankQ operates almost exclusively in the not for profit sector it can be difficult to find opportunities to demonstrate goodwill towards causes which do not appear unfair to our existing customers. We feel that the CEBF’s role, with the potential to provide benefit to all of our customers as individuals, gives us a great opportunity to give something back to the sector’.

Grant–giving organisations are an extremely diverse group, with no two organisations operating in the same way. However, thankQ has significant experience in providing tailored CRM solutions for this market, counting the Civil Society Benevolent Fund, the Bank Workers Charity, the Charity Finance Directors Group, the Musicians Benevolent Fund and BEN amongst its current customers.

In accepting the offer CEBF Chairman, David Preskott said:’CEBF is very grateful to thankQ for recognising the unique role of the Fund in caring for less fortunate people across the entire charity sector. The thankQ system will enable increased efficiency, especially in the areas of grant-making and fundraising which are fundamental to its further development’.

Grant–giving organisations are an extremely diverse group, with no two organisations operating in the same way. However, thankQ has significant experience in providing tailored CRM solutions for this market, counting the Civil Society Benevolent Fund, the Bank Workers Charity, the Charity Finance Directors Group, the Musicians Benevolent Fund and BEN amongst its current customers.

Team bunQ-up will be ably represented by Ben Ashton, Chris Jenkins, Laura Houghton, Lee Darby and Peter Conway. All will be leaving the bosom of their families and the comfort of their beds to spend one night cosying up in a flimsy cardboard box- brrrr!

But let’s not forget that this is the reality for thousands of people every single night. Framework provides a whole host of services to help homeless and vulnerable people get off the streets, get out of the cold and get their lives back.

If you would like to support team bunQ-up, then you can do so via our justgiving page. If you too are taking part in The Big Sleepout on November 10, then come and say hello! And as you lie snuggled up in bed tonight with your head on a soft pillow and your feet on a hot water bottle – do spare a thought for those who are not.

 In an effort to find some peace, John has devoted his latest blog to the question: Is it ok to make a profit from not for profit organisations? And if so, is there a limit to how much is acceptable?

If you’ve got a view, maybe you could add your comments? You might just help John get a decent night’s sleep!

NB Photo not actual representation of John. Pyjamas may differ on day! 

The Bank Workers Charity is a registered charity for bank employees, past and present, and their dependants. The charity provides information, advice, services and financial support, delivered online, via a dedicated helpline and through partners and in-house client advisors.

The charity had been using a number of IT systems to deal with administration, communications and information sharing and felt that it was time to review its IT investment in order to more effectively manage and share information across the organisation. 

The charity outlined several key features that were necessary in the chosen system, including integration with key finance and email systems, BACS tools and the Bank Workers Charity website. It was also essential that the new system had the flexibility and scalability to cope with changing requirements without any undue expense or degradation to system performance. 

The charity worked with Blue Spark Consulting to shortlist and select providers, basing their decision on providers’ ability to meet stringent functionality criteria in their standard applications, whilst allowing for a degree of customisation where necessary.

In particular the Bank Workers Charity wanted to ensure that all data captured in their grant application forms could be comprehensively saved, searched, summarised and reported upon. This is something that thankQ has been working closely with the charity to achieve.

Fred Payne, CEO of the Bank Workers Charity said of the appointment, ‘thankQ ticked all the boxes on paper and luckily for us, had already provided a very similar solution for The Musicians Benevolent Fund, which we were able to review as part of the selection process. This gave us added confidence that thankQ had a proven solution that could be easily tailored to suit our needs’. 

Historically, BEN used three individual systems to manage payroll giving, fundraising and grant administration, but in January 2010, BEN set out to find a supplier who could provide a single, integrated, functionally rich SQL based CRM system.

Chief Executive David Main explained the rationale behind BEN’s decision ‘We were working with  systems which lacked integration and which we considered were no longer fit for purpose. To effectively address the needs of our staff, partners and beneficiaries, it was clear that we needed to focus on improved functionality and support, whilst effectively minimising risk and duplication of effort. A single, modern, well supported system was the obvious answer’.

thankQ will initially provide a 20 concurrent user system which will be implemented in two distinct phases; fundraising and payroll giving followed by grants administration.  In the first implementation phase thankQ will supply contact management, fundraising, event and volunteer management modules along with customised software to administer the payroll giving agency, whilst the second phase will see the introduction of the Care and Welfare system.

The thankQ CRM system will also integrate with the BEN website and a Kypera finance system.

thankQ Sales Manager, Graham Hewitt said of the win ‘this is a cracking project. BEN planned and prepared meticulously during the procurement process and the user workshops have allowed us to give a clear insight into how thankQ will deliver maximum benefit for Ben. I’m delighted that BEN has put its trust in thankQ to support its operations’.

The first episode in the series sees this unlikely group of software peeps accepting a challenge from local charity bigwigs, Leicestershire Cares, to tackle an everyday gardening task. Will they manage to transform this overgrown wasteland into a super playground for Ratby pre-school children in time for the start of term? Tune in to thankQ tv to find out...

Currently state owned, the move to charitable status will give the nation’s canals and rivers a greater financial footing and the appointment of thankQ is an important step in being able to facilitate engagement with waterway supporters and donors.

Six companies were invited to tender to supply back office fundraising support for the new, yet to be named, charity. As part of the tender process suppliers were asked to confirm that their CRM solution could interface with a comprehensive SAP ERP system. 

A comprehensive 5 year fundraising strategy has been set out for the new charity which includes individual giving, appeals, events and legacy programmes, as well as programmes to strengthen corporate partnerships and Trust fundraising streams. Gift Aid will also be a key source of income for the charity and thankQ will manage the entire administrative process for taxation relief.  

Ruth Ruderham, the newly appointed head of fundraising for the new charity, comments: ”because this is a brand new system for a brand new charity, managing risk was a key factor in the selection process. thankQ won us over not just with its rich functionality, but also its proven track record.”   

The new charity is also seeking to extend its growing volunteer base and to make it as easy as possible for volunteers and supporters to engage with the charity online. thankQ will integrate with the charity’s website so that supporters can make payments or donations online and also update their contact details and availability.

John Bird Managing Director of thankQ added: “it’s rare and exciting to have the opportunity to work with a charity in its infancy and we are delighted that British Waterways and the new charity to follow have put their trust in thankQ. We will be bringing all of our experience and expertise to help the waterways build a robust and thriving fundraising community.”

 thankQ will be live by April next year when the new charity formally comes into existence.

Paul Ticher, your friendly data protection expert
thankQ has teamed up with independent consultant Paul Ticher to provide free data protection advice and guidance to thankQ customers, as well as offering substantial discounts on Paul Ticher data protection webinars.

Paul has over 20 years’ experience in the voluntary sector. He is a well-known independent consultant specialising in data protection, information management and IT strategy. Paul is also a widely-respected researcher, trainer and author. Find out more about Paul Ticher

Got a question? - call the thankQ data protection helpline today
If you  are a thankQ customer and you have a question about any aspect of data protection, including Freedom of Information, then call Paul on 0116 273 8191 or email paul@paulticher.com

thankQ customers enjoy 40% discount on Paul Ticher webinars
In addition to consultancy services, Paul also runs informative webinars on all aspects of data protection, from data protection basics, to putting your data in the cloud. These webinars usually cost £25, but the cost to thankQ customers is just £15. Want to know what’s coming up? Take a look at the webinar schedule

Need more than just a phone call?
Paul’s free thankQ helpline service is for organisations with one off queries that can be answered in a single phone call or a couple of emails. If you need more, Paul will be happy to provide a quote for any additional support you require.

Within the third sector, 62% of adults who make a regular payment to charity do so by Direct Debit, with only 1.2% of Direct Debit payments going unpaid.

With such impressive statistics to support Direct Debit as a channel for regular giving, can you be sure that you’re maximising every opportunity to encourage your supporters to set up Direct Debits?

Do you have a process in place for collecting unpaid Direct Debits and for reducing attrition?

And did you know that your fundraising system could be instrumental in helping you to optimise regular giving through Direct Debits?

get your supporters to set up a Direct Debit online
91% of charities offer online giving through their websites. However, despite many charities pinpointing regular giving as their most important income source, just 63% enable people to sign up online to give regular donations via Paperless Direct Debit.

how could thankQ web integration help?
thankQ includes all the tools you need to allow you to process paper based and paperless Direct Debits. Our ability to seamlessly integrate with your existing website means that online giving via paperless Direct Debit can be easy for your supporters too. And once a supporter has set up a Direct Debit online, their details will be available automatically in your fundraising system, making sure you have an up-to-date reord of their regular giving history.

set up a process for dealing with unpaid Direct Debits
In 2010, out of all unpaid Direct Debits, 56.50% were due to insufficient funds in the donor’s bank account, while a much smaller proportion, 33%, had been actively cancelled. Does your organisation differentiate between these two categories? If so, do you re-present the ‘Refer to Payer’ category the following month? Last year, a staggering 62.54% of Refer to Payer unpaids that were re-presented for payment again the following month were successful.

how could thankQ finance tools help?
thankQ uses strict workflow processes to manage all income as well as advanced reporting tools to help you identify and categorise missed payments. Once you have categorised ‘refer to payer’ unpaids, you can use actions and re-presentation tools to make sure that you re-present those payments the following month.  

set up a process for dealing with cancelled Direct Debits
So what do you do about the 33% of Direct Debit payments which are actively cancelled? That’s a significant amount of revenue that is potentially lost to your organisation forever. Do you have a strategy in place to try to re-activate cancelled accounts and how easy is it for supporters to re-activate a Direct Debit once it has been cancelled? Do you give your supporters the opportunity to reduce their regular commitment instead of cancelling outright and do you keep in touch with them in the hope that they will one day return?

how could thankQ mailing tools help?
thankQ helps you to manage all of your communications, personalising mailings however you want. You can set up a range of templates to acknowledge cancellations as soon as they happen or to keep in contact with lapsed supporters in an effort to encourage them to reactivate their account. You can schedule regular mailings, one off communications, emails and sms text messages according to supporters’ preferences. You can even segment your supporters and send a different message to each group, calling them by name and including specific details of their previous giving and the benefits it has provided.

Regular giving is vital for the smooth running of third sector organisations and Direct Debits are one of simplest and surest ways to ensure that your organisation gets the cash it needs. By implementing these simple processes and by utilising your fundraising system to put your strategy into action, you can be confident that your organisation is doing all it can to maximise regular giving by Direct Debit.

 *All figures quoted in this article are reproduced from the Rapidata Charity Direct Debit Tracking report 2011.

Sage has long been the popular choice amongst small and medium sized charities, and thankQ CRM software already integrates seamlessly with Sage products. However as more and more charity organisations choose QuickBooks accounting software, thankQ is taking steps to ensure that those customers enjoy the same levels of integration.

thankQ has been working closely with existing customers to understand the unique challenges posed by exporting financial data from thankQ and importing it into the QuickBooks package. Traditionally, customers would need to use a third party tool to complete the process, but now financial data can be exported from thankQ and imported into QuickBooks in one simple step.

Peter Conway, Senior Developer at thankQ said of the development ‘one of our greatest assets is our ability to integrate with commonly used office systems, so it was vital that we quickly got to grips with QuickBooks. thankQ customers will now reap the benefits of QuickBooks integration with increased efficiency, streamlined processes and improved data quality.’ 

Our resident blogger John Bird muses over a pleasant afternoon spent in the company of the taxman talking Gift Aid, R68s and whether you would swap a £20 note for a couple of tenners...  

In his latest blog, John Bird talks about thankQ’s close relationship with its customers, and how the user group gives us the opportunity to renew our vows every year...

So it comes as something of a shock to me to discover that worldwide, 2.6 billion people are dreaming about having a loo - any kind of loo. That’s 40% of the world’s population who don’t have somewhere safe, clean and hygienic to go to the loo. And I’m really pleased to be working for a company that thinks that stinks!

thankQ is doing its bit by supporting  www.toilettwinning.org , with all four thankQ loos twinned with latrines in the remote Giharo Commune of Rutana Province, Burundi.

What is Toilet Twinning?
Toilet Twinning is quite simply genius! For the princely sum of £60 you can twin your toilet at home, work or school with a Burundi latrine. In return you get a framed photo of your toilet’s twin, with information on the toilet’s location and, for the geeks among us, its GPS coordinates so you can look it up on Google maps.

The money raised is used to help households in Burundi have their own loo; enjoy better health; go to school and work; and fund other projects to alleviate poverty around the world.

Since the launch of Toilet Twinning in 2009, more than 1,600 latrines have been built in Burundi – providing safe loos for nearly 10,000 people!

So if you’re looking for a present for the person who has everything, or you need something to cover up that unsightly crack in the bathroom wall, or you just want to give someone their dignity back, then join us in supporting www.toilettwinning.org in their campaign to make loos fit for poo!

  This prestigious biennial event is a key fixture in the hospice calendar, and the theme of this year’s conference is ‘widening horizons’, acknowledging the challenges faced by hospices seeking to adapt to a changing healthcare environment and an increasingly stretched economy. Topics at this year’s conference will sit under 4 key strands:

• leadership and governance
• care
• policy into practice
• community engagement.

thankQ has already successfully exhibited at the NAHF conference this year and wishes to continue to support the hospice sector. John Bird, Managing Director of thankQ said, ‘we have some long associations with many of our hospice and palliative care customers and we have developed a considerable amount of expertise in this sector. We see this sponsorship opportunity as a chance to cement our existing relationships and to make some new friends along the way’.

thankQ will be presenting a workshop at the conference on how hospices can use smart technology, web integration and social media to enhance relationships within their donor community.

Find out more about how thankQ helps hospices.

Having used the same membership system for over 10 years, WIZO.uk felt it was time to either upgrade or replace their system to meet their current requirements, which now include CRM, events, fundraising and finance functions. Web integration was also an important consideration, as WIZO.uk want to give their 25,000 plus supporter base the convenience of being able to update their details and book events online.

The thankQ CRM system was initially recommended to WIZO.uk by a member of staff who had used it in a previous role. The WIZO.uk team looked at a range of potential suppliers, before ultimately selecting thankQ.

Linda Boxer, Executive Director at WIZO.uk said of the selection, “Jewish Women’s Week is a time when awareness of women’s issues in Israel is at its highest. The ways in which thankQ can help us to effectively capture information, manage donations and communicate to existing and potential donors during these intensive fundraising periods is impressive, and we look forward to putting thankQ through its paces”.

The survey, completed during January and February this year aimed to:

•    establish key statistics relating to working in the charity finance sector

•    understand CFDG members’ opinions of working in the sector; and

•    gauge the impact of the recession on recruitment activity.

The annual survey assesses salaries, recruitment and staffing policies within the charity sector, seeking to identify trends over time. This year’s survey was distributed to over 1,600 CFG members. thankQ is proud to have sponsored this important piece of research and it is reassuring to read that the economic downturn seems to have had minimal effect on the charity finance sector; average salary levels have generally increased since 2010, demonstrating the value charities place on their finance function.

However the report suggests that the recession has not left the sector completely unscathed, with a third of respondents indicating that recruitment within their organisation fell in 2010 and will continue to fall in 2011. Over half conceded that staff retention will also be less of a focus in 2011.

The knock-on effect of such recruitment freezes seems to be that existing staff are working longer to cover the shortfall, with the majority of respondents claiming to work longer than their contracted hours. The report makes for interesting reading, especially on the issue of gender. More women are employed in finance teams in the sector, but, even with the benefit of flexible working, the top jobs are still dominated by men.

These are some of the main findings of the report which appears on the CFG website.<-->

Having met with two preferred suppliers, Stonewall embarked on a robust final selection process before appointing thankQ.  

thankQ Sales and Account Manager Michelle Durant told us: “Because Stonewall wanted to integrate contact management across the organisation, it was important to reassure individual departments that thankQ  was right for them. To do this, we ran workshops using supplied scripts to demonstrate how thankQ could seamlessly integrate with their everyday work”.

 Using thankQ, Stonewall will map commonly held contacts to enable more targeted and efficient marketing activity but still giving individual departments control and ownership of their data. Stonewall will also use thankQ’s intelligent reporting functionality to give them better visibility and control over the donor journey, increasing revenue and reducing attrition.

Stonewall’s IT Manager Alex Little said of the decision to appoint thankQ: “the main decisions were made around flexibility and ease of use. We need a system that is fit for purpose and thankQ demonstrated a genuine understanding of our unique requirements. But, it was just as important for us to get the relationship right. We felt that thankQ was a good fit with the culture of our organisation and we are looking forward to the prospect of working together.”  

 The competition was hotly contested but Helen’s poetic entry was judged to be the most original and creative. Helen wins a signed photo of boyband sensations JLS to auction or raffle to raise money for Michael Sobell House.

Helen’s winning entry:

“This photo I’d like to win,
although coveting is such a sin
they are all such lovely boys
and make a change from stuffed toys
raffling it for money makes me grin”.

Two runners up, Louise Leah from Saint Catherine’s Hospice and Karen Shardlow from Florence Nightingale Hospice will each receive a selection of thankQ goodies to share amongst their fundraising teams.

John has spent the past 5 years spearheading thankQ’s Corporate and Social Responsibility policy and during this time has become increasingly frustrated at how difficult it can be to engage charities in long term, mutually beneficial relationships.

So, when he got the opportunity to present a seminar at the recent CHASE exhibition, John jumped at the chance to bring his personal experiences to the attention of the very people thankQ is trying to engage with, and to give his own ideas and tips on how charities can get more out of relationships with corporates.

In preparation for his talk, John surveyed both corporate and charity organisations to get as broad a range of experience and evidence as possible to create an engaging and informative session.

You can read John’s Corporate Giving talk here.

 It is just another way of describing remote hosting, right? Just to give ourselves a sanity check, we went along to a Microsoft Partner meeting to check we weren’t missing a trick!

Phew – we weren’t. But we did think that if we’re starting to get our minds clouded by ‘the cloud’, then we’re probably not alone. So John Bird, our man with his head in the clouds, has taken it upon himself offload about being offsite in his latest blog.

And if you’re starting to feel inadequate because you’re not ‘in the cloud’, then a quick read of John’s blog should be just the reassurance you need!

To date we have achieved level 3 (of 5) of BS8555, a recognised British Standard award, which caters for companies that have implemented an Environmental Management System, and can show that they manage environmental impact, improve environmental performance and obey legislation.

To meet the requirements of the BS8555 accreditation, and to fulfil our wider Corporate Social Responsibility Policy, we implement a green office policy, and are committed to making a positive contribution to the environment and to the community.

So, if you go down to the woods on March 4, you might bump into 5 thankQ volunteers, who will be offsetting our carbon output by planting 50 saplings at the National Forest Business Benefit tree planting event, in the gorgeously named Poppy Wood in Melbourne, Derbyshire.

And we nervously await the announcement of our Team Challenge Event which we have agreed to as part of our membership of Leicestershire Cares - garden landscaping, mural painting, building work....bring it on!

And if that’s not enough, we’re also getting involved with Leicestershire Cares’ ‘Go for Reading’ campaign, working with local schoolchildren to help improve their literacy skills.

But don’t worry; we won’t all be out at once!

This comprehensive survey asks individuals to anonymously provide information about their salary, employee benefits, employment history, qualifications and motivation for changing employment - and the resulting report  will provide a wealth of information across the whole not for profit spectrum, including details of variations in relation to the size, location, sector and scope of each organisation.  The report also seeks to gain an insight into the impact of economic factors on the sector as a whole.

The survey is being conducted by an independent market research company, Critical Research and has been sent to all CFG members.

If you are a CFG member and have not yet received your invitation to complete the survey, please contact Mel Jezierska, CFG Policy Officer, at melora.jezierska@cfdg.org.uk. The closing date for responses is 14th February. 

The CFG will release its findings in April. For more information, go to www.cfg.org.uk

All of our customers, suppliers and partners should have received letters explaining this change before Christmas, but if you did not, or would like any more information about the change, then please get in touch.

On the 25 November, six hardy thankQ team members are sleeping rough to help highlight the plight of the homeless and to raise funds for Nottinghamshire homeless charity Framework.

Donning their thermals in the Big Sleep Out alongside John are head of support Ben Ashton, senior developer Andy Barsby, senior project managers Stephen Gott and Lee Darby, and office manager Rose Farris.

Last year a whooping £3,200 was raised and here at ThankQ, we want to improve on everything we do. Join us in smashing this figure by visiting our Just Giving page at http://www.justgiving.com/SLEEPiT to give what you can.

Sleeping outside at night is not something that we like to think of any one doing, so the SleepIT team are only staying outdoors for one night. To keep them awake they will be tweeting throughout the night. Keep them company by following us @thankQ_HQ.

Nicola Skingle, head of partnerships and projects at The Stroke Association, explains, "We have made a significant investment in the Mircosoft Dynamics CRM system and we’re very happy with it. So finding a fundraising database that was compatible with our existing system was a key consideration in the selection process."

With the assistance of consultant Peter Flory, The Stroke Association chose the thankQ fundraising solution to sit alongside the existing Microsoft Dynamics system.

We love to solve problems and we knew that our CRM could get to the heart of the matter in handling all aspects of fundraising including direct marketing and appeals, legacy management and organising fundraising events nationwide.

Nicola continues, "We looked at a number of options for our fundraising work and ultimately chose thankQ because of the depth and breadth of functionality and value for money. The team seemed to really understand what we need from a fundraising system, particularly in terms of direct mail and have reflected this in the product."

Shankar (formerly of Christian Aid) will be responsible for managing major service providers and leading the surge capacity for fundraising. He will oversee implementation of the fundraising component of DEC's new thankQ database. To make life just that little bit easier, Shanker and his team will also use thankQ to manage the appeal process, including the documentation and relationships with DEC's members.

We’ve just had our 6th annual tree planting with the National Forest to offset our Carbon Footprint. This year our volunteers Kevin, Andy and Laura (pictured here by National Forest’s official photographer Darren Creswell of Cresswell Photography) braved the cold and rain to plant 50 oak, ash and silver birch trees at Poppy Wood in Derbyshire.

We couldn’t believe how much our trees have grown. It just goes to show that small ideas create big change.

And there are a lot of people that need to be kept updated. An annual programme of meetings and sessions at national and international meetings, society publications and journals all keenly anticipated by the society’s 2000 members.

It is a task that would make many pale but several staff at the Society are old friends of thankQ where we worked with them at the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeon’s Trust, so they already knew about thankQ’s functionality, flexibility and reliability. This made us the obvious choice to handle the Society’s requirements which include integrating with their existing membership area of its website using a SOAP interface (If you want to know what this is go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOAP!).

Andrew Scanlan, Development Manager at University of Brighton, praises the thankQ project team, "I have been very impressed with how the project has been managed. The communication has been excellent and I was very pleased with all the work undertaken."

The success of Brighton’s six-month thankQ project was founded on the great relationship forged between us all. A single point of contact at Brighton, with total focus on the project and the authority to make decisions, alongside a dedicated thankQ project manager, made for perfect communications. Despite the very complex data mapping issues involved in linking the university’s SITS (Student Information System) with thankQ, deadlines were comfortably met. We love a challenge and the team at thankQ passed with honours.

It’s great to know that other well-established higher education customers continue to build on their flourishing thankQ installations. Click here to find out how thankQ’s easy third part integration contributes to the management and analysis of University of Edinburgh's twice-yearly Telethon. (ADD LINK TO EDINBURGH CASE STUDY)

Five years Keele of cultivating the affinity and goodwill of the 69,000 alumni on its database paid off with pledges gained from 40% of those approached during the Telethon. This staggering result was enabled by use of high calibre Telethon callers, with Keele students recruited not only for their skill set but for their passion for and knowledge of the university.

John Easom, Keele’s Alumni Officer, says, "It would be impossible to achieve such great results without excellent data and the ability to extract key information quickly. thankQ provided that and was the basic building block for our success.”

It was a chilling affair but well worth the efforts with a fantastic £3,200 raised for the charity. Congrats to the team (Andy Barsby, Lee Darby, Ben Ashton, Laura Houghton and John Bird) who survived the night, aided by some even colder free ice-cream!

Louise Darby, fundraising manager of Framework, says: "The Big Sleep Out 2009 was Framework’s most successful fundraising event ever. The event provides an opportunity to have fun and do something different, but come 11pm when the lights go off and people retreat the their cardboard boxes, it also provides a more serious opportunity to engage with the issue of homelessness."

ACF already provide a great framework in which trusts and foundations can learn from each other, explore concerns and achieve good practice in grant-making. thankQ CRM and Membership modules will be just the boost that ACF need to consolidate their existing databases and ensure that communication is at the highest level. We are really proud of our Events module with its sophisticated web integration and know that when AFC need to organise one of their many events, the online booking payments and confirmation emails will be a breeze to manage.

A year ago, Dispatches told the story of how children in Africa's Niger Delta were being denounced by Christian pastors as witches and wizards, and then killed, tortured or abandoned by their own families. The latest programme returns to find out what happened to some of the people featured in the first film.

Fundraising is vital to Stepping Stones Nigeria’s efforts in promoting and protecting the rights of vulnerable and disadvantaged children. The thankQ Fundraising module will provide the charity with much more than just donation processing - tools for legacy management, prospect tracking, trust applications, campaign & project management and KPI reports are included as standard. This is the kind of project that makes thankQ determined to continue providing the very best systems for our customers.

The United Synagogue is a modern and united family of 62 local communities with members connected to vibrant Jewish life and Torah values. At the moment, each synagogue uses K2, a bespoke MySQL membership database. Links to the new thankQ system at the United Synagogue head office will introduce relationship management and networking, adding a real boost to the charity’s fundraising activities. It’s great that thankQ will also be used to manage the annual Kol Nidre appeal.

We love providing customers with just what they need. Friends of the Sick (Chevrat Bikkur Cholim), a smaller charity that employs carers to provide care and support to the needy in the Jewish community, found that a standard thankQ database was quite sufficient to run its day to day operations. A very generous supporter of the charity enabled the purchase and as an added bonus, the 'live' thankQ system was available within just one month of the order being placed!

We couldn’t wait to show off the improved features and functionality of the latest release of thankQ and offered everyone the choice of a dozen different break-out sessions on subjects ranging from thankQ Upgrades, Paperless Direct Debit to Web Integration. With presentations from thankQ partners Experian QAS and McConkey Johnston - there really was something for everyone!

A happy thankQ customer commented: "The format was brisk and purposeful, informative and equipped me to make some decisions and improvements. The venue and timings were ideal..."

We are blushing.

Providing 1,300 members with information and education on relevant issues, running multiple site training courses and an annual BCVA Congress is no easy task and so we took the bull by the horns. We are delighted to report that BCVA has now gone live with thankQ software to manage its CRM, Membership and Events functions.

This busy schedule necessitated seamless integration into existing systems. Dee Little of the BCVA says, "The integration into our overall system/network seems to be running well including accessibility via the Citrix server and importing data into Sage."

Listening to customer feedback after each project is what makes us tick and how we continue to improve. The continuing support and excellent customer response from the thankQ team, gained us a pat on the back from the BCVA.

"The training data is extremely useful and it is very helpful that it is updated each week to reflect our current data. The staff at thankQ are always friendly and helpful ... and communications are always dealt with promptly," says Dee.

Planting a mixture of silver birch, oak and ash trees, we were glad to have The National Forest team on hand to offer expert advice, as well as rewarding us with hot drinks and biscuits! National Forest’s official photographer Darren Creswell, of Creswell Photography, provided a pictorial record (including the shot shown here) for both the participants and for those left holding the fort at thankQ. We were all thrilled to see the growth of last year’s trees and a great reminder to all at thankQ that every little thing we do can make a difference.

Formed in 2001, Homeless Link has around 450 members providing a range of services including hostels, advice centres, health projects and outreach work. A comprehensive and robust system is needed to service this growing demand and Homeless Link found that standard thankQ modules were perfect for CRM, membership and fundraising and the management of its extensive range of member training courses. The project is set to go live at the end of April 2009 and the thankQ team is really chuffed to have been selected.

"I was amazed to be called directly by the data transfer programmer himself! We quickly established a good basis for communications and were in touch regularly through to project completion. To make a programmer available to the customer in this way was both an extremely refreshing approach, from a software supplier, and a very effective means of progressing the project during the data transfer phase," says Michael.

"I found all the thankQ staff who worked on the project to be friendly and professional. They were focussed on our needs as a customer first and foremost. We had complete confidence in thankQ’s ability to deliver and felt there was no issue that could not be overcome without putting our heads together and working out a solution between us."

CFDG selected the thankQ database software by tender last year and handed us a pretty complex set of requirements and a tight timescale. Just the project to keep us on our toes. We delivered a top notch live thankQ system just three months after exchange of contracts.

REDRESS, which works with survivors to help restore their dignity and to make torturers accountable, has found the thankQ database ideal to manage its CRM and fundraising.

The milestone follows thankQ’s recent appearance in Civil Society IT magazine's 2009 Charity CRM Software Satisfaction survey. We were ranked 1st overall where charities were asked to rate their software supplier. The thankQ database also achieved the highest score for functionality.

The new version builds on previous functionality and features improved reporting tools, pop-up reminders and new modules including Advice (Helpdesk), Feedback and HR. Our existing customers regularly comment on how easy thankQ is to use. Version 7 makes the most of the latest Microsoft standards for layout and navigation, the new interface will continue to keep it at the forefront of technology.

We build on feedback at thankQ and our customers were more involved in this release than ever before. We listened to what was being said and as a result, over 30% of new features were introduced as a response to direct requests and final feedback during an evaluation day in January. The team at thankQ cannot wait to show off the new software again at the User Group on 9 June.

The International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights is a project that will take advantage of our ability to grow with an organisation to implement a phased project over the coming year.

thankQ clients with Help and Advice Lines have given us the kind of invaluable experience needed to make sure that Skills for Care, the organisation that aims to modernise adult social care in England, can make the most of their new Information Line.

thankQ has won the National Silver Award in recognition of our Green Commuting Scheme. Trophies are awarded annually to recognise organisations carrying out projects that benefit the environment. This year’s awards were presented at the House of Commons by top botanist and TV personality Professor David Bellamy OBE.

The judges said, "Any business has a responsibility to encourage its staff to travel to and from work as efficiently as is practical. thankQ promotes green travel by donating £1 to nominated charities each time an employee uses an efficient mode of transport."

The Green Apple Awards are run by the Green Organisation, an independent, non-political, non-profit organisation that recognises, rewards and promotes environmental best practice around the world.

National Organiser Roger Wolens says, "We had around 570 nominations this year and presented about 80 awards, so thankQ did particularly well to triumph against some very strong competition."

Managing information and communications technology can be a tricky affair, so The ICT Hub Guide to Managing ICT in the Voluntary and Community Sector, sponsored by thankQ is an invaluable resource aimed at all levels of expertise. You can download it or order a printed copy from the ICT Hub website.

Meanwhile, thankQ managing director John Bird hooked up with Charity Times to produce the Data Migration fact sheet, a handy resource that outlines opportunities and pitfalls of data migration, as well as giving advice on identifying, cleansing and transferring your data.

We were pretty chuffed with the efforts of the thankQ team and were really pleased to choose two Leicestershire charities, LOROS (the Leicestershire and Rutland Hospice) and Ecohouse (run by Groundwork Leicester and Leicestershire) to receive cheques for over £760 each.

Caroline Harmon, Groundwork’s Development Manager for the EcoHouse says, "We are delighted that thankQ chose to support the EcoHouse. The money will help us to raise awareness of climate change and transport issues and hopefully encourage more people to use environmentally friendly modes of transport."

Adrian Walker, Senior Fundraiser for LOROS, says, "LOROS currently provides care for over 2,200 patients each year. It is only with thanks to donations and fundraising that LOROS is able to provide such a wide variety of services to patients free of charge."

thankQ’s chosen charities for the coming year are Sustrans, an organisation whose aim is to specifically tackle the issue of responsible transport, and Framework, who are a Nottingham based organisation helping the homeless. We can’t wait to get started.

Contact a Family is the only UK-wide charity providing advice, information and support to the parents of disabled children to at least 275,000 families every year, whilst Foundation for the Relief of Disabled Orphans (F.R.O.D.O) aims to transform the quality of life of orphans in developing countries who suffer from disability or life-threatening illness. Mayday Trust manages nine housing projects across Warwickshire, Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire, providing specialised support, accommodation and life-skills training for vulnerable adults and Touraid is a charity which gives young people from disadvantaged backgrounds the opportunity to come to the UK to play rugby.

At thankQ we know that whatever the aims of the organisation, we provide an invaluable fundraising tool that ticks all the right boxes.

The latest update provides enhanced de-duplication functionality using 'fuzzy logic' so you can more effectively search and identify records and fields. So name or address records duplicated through a spelling error should be a thing of the past. Those with errant fingers can relax. We are really pleased with the benefits and we know you will be. When you are not creating multiple records you save mailing costs and develop even better relationships with supporters.

We didn't stop here, improvements to the data import tools now allow more accurate and quicker bulk data entry saving, improving quality and processing time.

This update also uses the most up to date Windows technology, so you are free to personalise the look and feel of your software - altering colours, fonts and tab designs at liberty or to match your organisation’s corporate style. This great new feature allows thankQ to make the most of the latest adaptive technologies, ensuring that it is accessible for all users.

John Bird, our managing director of thankQ, says, "The features and functionality delivered in this latest update of thankQ gives us a really exciting edge over other products. The developments are all at the heart of what makes thankQ the successful product it is – we want to give control to the user, and make the most of the technology already available to them."

It’s been a tricky task. First we considered a reward in proportion to the distance covered, but realised that the staff that lived nearest and walked would be rewarded less than those that drove, and that just didn’t seem right. Then we had the light bulb moment, the one when we realised that what motivates the thankQ team is giving.

As our managing director John Bird explains, "We realised it was the personal effort and not the environmental difference that had to be rewarded, and such an incentive was always going to be too subjective to be applied fairly. Instead, we decided to make a donation to a local charity and the amount suddenly became irrelevant to the individual; those making the effort could see that they are making a difference to somebody who really needs it and the incentive became greater."

Our light bulb moment means that Green Commuting scheme has double the benefit - to the environment, and to the charities who receive the donation. Last year, thankQ employees made over 1000 'green commutes' to work and we donated £1 for each point. This year we hope to raise £2000, which will be shared between local charities LOROS, who provide palliative hospice care, and environmental awareness organisation Groundwork Leicester and Leicestershire previously known as Environ.

Based on the established thankQ software, our solution will be used to manage approximately 100,000 alumni records and donations each year. The thankQ database will be fully integrated with the MyEd alumni portal, allowing former students to configure their access to web-based services within and beyond the University, including an on-line directory of alumni and the ability to donate on-line.

The day is designed so that you can revisit the functionality of each module. A step by step programme will make sure that you have all of the necessary skills and handy shortcuts to make your experience of thankQ even better.