Comic Relief

When Comic Relief and thankQ started working together in February 2000, the aim was to bring together a number of different databases, used by different departments, into a single system. Comic Relief places great importance on its relationships with celebrities and corporate supporters and the goodwill that this can generate. With this in mind, a single system recording the entire relationship with each contact was vital.

thankQ went live in May 2000. As part of the process a huge data cleansing operation was undertaken on the basis that the new system would only be as good as the data within it. The result of this operation was that the potential 100,000+ contact records were reduced to approximately 30,000.

The following year, in order to further consolidate and maximise information systems within the organisation, new modules were incorporated into thankQ to include the elements of the grants administration process. The initial enthusiastic uptake of thankQ meant that there was a high demand for additional features and functionality to be added. After a period of piecemeal development, it was agreed that a holistic view needed to be taken and certain areas of the software were revamped and updated.

The system has now been used for three Red Nose Day campaigns and records everything from the day to day communication with contacts to the individual aspects of the campaign. This includes details of the TV programmes and other associated events that celebrities will be involved in.

At the end of 2003, a new feature was implemented, which enables users to log inbound and outbound emails directly from Microsoft Outlook. This has been a major development for Comic Relief. In preparation for Sport Relief 2004, the Inbound Communications module was implemented. This enables users to record communications from the general public concerning any aspect of a given campaign — ranging from enquiries about fundraising packs and merchandise to the logging of potential complaints.