Northeast Passage knew that in order to advance their mission, they would need to improve their efficiencies and find a different solution to store and access their data.

Challenge:

Established in 1990, Northeast Passage offers recreational programs for people with disabilities designed to improve access, independence, and quality of life for over 1,000 disabled individuals in the New England area. In addition to the recreational therapy and sports programs, Northeast Passage offers a variety of sports equipment for rent, transportation facilitation, and training and educational programs.

As a small organization that had been operating for several years and with limited resources, Northeast Passage knew that in order to advance their mission, they would need to improve their efficiencies and find a different solution to store and access their data rather than the multiple databases that they were currently using, which were also not customizable.

Solution:

In 2009, Northeast Passage leveraged the Salesforce.com Foundation’s licensed donation program and implemented the Nonprofit Starter Pack. Without a dedicated IT person on staff, Northeast Passage was having difficulty customizing salesforce for their needs. That’s where Swift River Consulting came in. Northeast Passage selected Swift River Consulting because the solutions Swift River’s services employed to other clients spoke to the different issues that their organization needed to tackle.

“Swift River Consulting reassured us that we were not in over our heads and could do what we needed to do.”

The Benefits:

  • In as little as 4 months, Swift River Consulting had the Salesforce platform up and running for Northeast Passage. Swift River Consulting consolidated 15 years of data to their Salesforce instance. Since they started using Salesforce in 2009, Northeast Passage has increased their constituent base by nearly 90%!
  • Swift River Consulting also created an equipment rentals program moving their paper-based system to the cloud. The ability to reserve equipment remotely made it more accessible for everyone, staff can now see the availability of inventory and it has eliminated any potential conflicts.
  • In addition to their new equipment rentals program, their transportation reservation system also became more efficient by moving to the cloud. Northeast currently has 4 vehicles and 7 trailers that are used for their programs. Staff now has the ability to book through Salesforce, can see when it’s free and again has eliminated any potential conflicts.
  • Swift River Consulting set up their invoicing to be handled in salesforce which has decreased the amount of staff’s administrative work. Now with it all being in central location, they can create their own invoices and do their own billing.
  • Since switching to Salesforce and with the help of Swift River Consulting, Northeast Passage has seen a significant increase in their efficiency and program operations. “Salesforce has revolutionized the way we work. It’s another tool we use to deliver our services and makes us better at what we do. The support and questions Swift River Consulting answered for us were really instrumental to get us to be where we are,” says Keely Ames, Development Coordinator at Northeast Passage.

“Swift River really took the time to understand how it is we work and what we needed to do to make the salesforce platform work for our organization. We weren’t treated like every nonprofit is the same.” – Keely Ames,  Development Coordinator,  Northeast Passage