Brathay Trust is a UK charity that helps young people build brighter futures through outdoor learning, residential experiences and community-based programmes. Working with young people across the UK, the organisation delivers initiatives designed to support personal development, resilience and life skills.
Case Study
Brathay Trust adopts Dynamics 365 and Evo 365 to support fundraising management
Brathay Trust had outgrown its spreadsheet-based processes, so they worked with Chorus to bring fundraising into a single, structured CRM system built on Microsoft Dynamics 365.
Challenges
- Fundraising information was primarily managed through spreadsheets.
- Major donor and corporate fundraising activity required a more structured process.
- Supporter information, fundraising opportunities and communications were spread across multiple tools.
- The organisation wanted a system that could adapt to support future requirements.
Solutions
- Implemented Microsoft Dynamics 365 as a central CRM platform.
- Deployed the fundraising elements of Evo 365, Chorus’s fundraising accelerator for Dynamics 365.
- Migrated existing fundraising data from spreadsheets into a structured system.
- Introduced a consistent process for managing contacts, organisations and fundraising opportunities.
- Integrated the platform with Mailchimp to support supporter communications.
Outcomes
- Fundraising information is now managed in a central CRM system.
- Contacts, organisations and fundraising opportunities can be tracked in a single location.
- Fundraising campaigns and activities are easier to manage through a structured process.
- Data is stored in a format that supports reporting and future development.
- The organisation has a platform that can be extended as requirements evolve.
Moving fundraising beyond spreadsheets
Like many charities, Brathay Trust had built spreadsheet-based processes to manage fundraising activity. This gave the team flexibility, but keeping donor information, organisational relationships and fundraising opportunities across multiple spreadsheets became harder as the data grew.
The charity wanted a more structured approach to managing philanthropic fundraising activity, covering relationships with major donors, corporate supporters, grant applications and fundraising opportunities.
To meet this, Chorus implemented Microsoft Dynamics 365 alongside Evo 365, a fundraising accelerator built for charities on the Dynamics 365 platform. Rather than replacing every process across the organisation at once, the project focused on building a system for managing philanthropic fundraising activity.
Creating a structured fundraising platform
The solution brought fundraising information into a single platform, letting Brathay Trust manage contacts, organisations and fundraising opportunities through a consistent process.
Existing spreadsheet data was reviewed and migrated into Dynamics 365, giving fundraising teams one central source of information. The system was configured to reflect Brathay Trust’s fundraising processes, using the standard capabilities available within Dynamics 365 and Evo 365.
This kept the platform structured while avoiding extensive custom development.
Driving supporter engagement & communications
Alongside managing fundraising opportunities, the platform was integrated with Mailchimp to support communications with donors and supporters.
By connecting fundraising data with communication activity, Brathay Trust gained a more joined-up approach to supporter engagement, while keeping a single source of information for fundraising activity.
Why Dynamics 365 and Evo 365 were a good fit
Brathay Trust’s requirements centred on contact management, organisation management and fundraising opportunity tracking, core strengths of Microsoft Dynamics 365, which made it a natural fit for the project.
Evo 365 added charity-specific fundraising functionality on top of the Microsoft platform, letting Brathay Trust benefit from established fundraising processes without building a bespoke solution from scratch.
By using standard Dynamics 365 capabilities alongside Evo 365, the charity implemented a system that addressed its immediate fundraising requirements while providing a foundation for future development.
Brathay Trust now has one place to manage fundraising relationships, rather than piecing information together across spreadsheets and separate tools. That can free up time previously spent maintaining and reconciling manual records.
About Chorus
Chorus is a trusted UK Microsoft Solutions Partner, founded in 1999 and based in Bristol. As a partner, we help charities and commercial organisations across the UK, and internationally, design, build and manage business applications with Microsoft Dynamics 365, Microsoft Power Platform and Microsoft Dataverse. Chorus built Evo 365 for charities and non-profits, our own charity CRM accelerator for Dynamics 365, providing fundraising and membership management capabilities out of the box, reducing the need for extensive custom development.
Talk to Chorus about your Dynamics 365 for charities today.