Charity intranet success stories

 •  12 Jul, 13  •  3 min read

The very nature of the charity industry can make internal communications challenging – with many dispersed volunteers working across many locations. This issue is heightened even more with the large amount of usually sensitive information they need to deliver to a range of people, including part-time volunteers working in a small shop, to the Chief Executive and trustees.

There are also a number of other factors unique to the charity sector including:

  • High staff turnover
  • Governance
  • Resource
  • Part-time staff
  • Flexibility
  • Role/skill diversity

A successfully deployed and adopted charity intranet portal can give charities an invaluable platform that will have huge benefits to the way they work, including assisting with streamlining key business processes, improving internal communications and significantly reducing operating costs.

Case Studies: These employee portal examples show how some Interact customers are achieving success with their charity intranet

Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation

The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation has 1600 employees working across 15 countries. The organisation’s global landscape can present internal challenges when it comes to sharing information, communicating and collaborating.

They previously used a SharePoint intranet, which was difficult to manage and was proving to be more of a hindrance to collaboration and knowledge sharing than an aide due to the time, effort and training needed to maintain it.

Benefits since moving to Interact:

  • Decentralising the day-to-day running of the intranet away from IT has saved money in time and resources
  • Postage costs and internal e-mail traffic have been significantly reduced
  • Obtaining information for funding proposals is now far quicker and easier
  • Anyone in the organisation can quickly and easily add a document or blog onto the intranet.
  • People are empowered to find their own information using the powerful search facility, saving time and making everyone more productive.
  • The Foundation feels they are more of a ‘community’ where everybody feels they can have their say.

Their intranet went on to win a CIO Award for demonstrating the ‘Transformative Power of IT and Business’ with their intranet.

The most important change is that the intranet has brought us all more firmly together. This feeling of community, of working towards one vision, is vital for what we do and Crossroads has given us a living example of this.

Keith Fleming, IT Manager for EGPAF

EGPAF screen shot

North Devon Hospice

North Devon Hospice was the UK winner of Interact’s Global Charity Competition in 2012. The charity was very eager to build and roll out a custom intranet for their 500 staff and volunteers based at the charity’s headquarters and 12 shops spread across North Devon, UK.

Without an existing charity intranet portal, the intranet needed to overhaul internal processes, improve departmental communications and reduce costs.

Benefits since moving to Interact:

  • The Community Nurses working remotely across North Devon and the staff and volunteers working remotely in the charity shops now have instant access to everything, including news, information and access to all processes
  • The intranet has become a reference point for all everything, meaning that everyone has access to information at the touch of a button
  • Significantly improved access to information as all documents and forms are now stored centrally in one place, making it easy to find what people need through straightforward navigation
  • Every patient and carer leaflet has been uploaded to the intranet with their review dates in the summary, boosting confidence in version control
  • The People Directory has meant that for the first time, employees and volunteers were available at the touch of a button and those who hadn’t met before got to put faces to names.

From day one, the Intranet has been developed from the bottom up. I visited every department to tell them about our amazing win with Interact and we talked about what they would like to see on there, what would be useful, among plenty of other things. The Intranet is completely bespoke to meet the needs of the hospice and its departments.

I started to roll out of the new intranet (January 2013) through small launch sessions so people could see and use it for the first time and ask questions if they needed to. At the end of every session, people gave nothing but positive feedback and enthusiasm for the Intranet. It’s so easy to use and navigate and with everything in one place, it is quite easy to see just how it will benefit the charity and people in their roles. What we have now is a fantastic platform which will continue to evolve, continue to keep meeting the needs of the charity and continue to keep reducing our costs year on year.

Marie Fraser, Head of Marketing and Communications at North Devon Hospice

 North devon screen shot