Case Study

The Charlie Waller Trust

The Charlie Waller Trust is an award-winning charity which aims to help children and young people with their mental health by equipping their support systems – school, college and university staff, community group leaders, and families – with knowledge, resources and practical tools they can use to help.

Whether it’s longer-term training courses, one-off seminars or clinically developed resources, all of the charity’s work aims to be practical, proven, positive, and free to access for those who need it.

To keep providing these vital services in our communities, Charlie Waller relies on charitable donations and the hard work of their fundraising team.

With an existing CRM system limited to basic fundraising activities, Chorus helped Charlie Waller by delivering a modern CRM solution built on Dynamics 365, which enhanced their fundraising and operational processes within a single system.

Challenges

  • A basic existing fundraising management system that wasn’t extensible
  • Requirement for a CRM system that could support both fundraising and operational activities

Solutions

  • Modern CRM system built on Dynamics 365 with Evo 365 accelerator
  • Modules to help with fundraising, trusts and grants, legacies and more
  • Functionality to manage training requirements and support groups

Outcomes

  • Modern and flexible charity CRM solution based on Dynamics 365
  • Enhanced capabilities in fundraising and operational management within a single system

Chorus delivered a modern CRM solution that has equipped our fundraising and operational teams with a comprehensive suite of capabilities. This has enabled us to better manage key processes and continue working towards our mission. Our teams thoroughly enjoyed collaborating with Chorus, and we’re thrilled with the results we’ve achieved together.

Carrie GreenFinance and Operations Manager at The Charlie Waller Trust

Background

The Charlie Waller Trust is a charity named after an amazing young man, Charlie, who died by suicide at the age of 28 in 1997. This was a time when mental health wasn’t as well understood, or discussed, as it is today.

In the wake of his passing, Charlie’s family was determined to raise awareness about depression and support others struggling with their mental health.

They established The Charlie Waller Trust, and since then, the charity has been making a significant impact, positively affecting the lives of tens of thousands of young people.

Using modern technology

Modern technology is essential for Charlie Waller to continue advancing their mission. With a fundraising team and operations spanning various services, Charlie Waller wanted a CRM system that could transform and optimise their processes across both fundraising and operations.

Having already implemented Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central for their finance, Charlie Waller were familiar with Microsoft’s business applications. After consulting with Chorus, a Microsoft Partner specialising in CRM solutions for charities and the non-profit sector, they decided to collaborate on developing a solution built on Dynamics 365 and Evo 365.

Discovery and project approach

The project began with a discovery process, allowing Charlie Waller to define their exact needs for a new system and enabling Chorus to understand the existing technologies and processes in place.

The discovery phase quickly revealed that the capabilities of Charlie Waller’s existing fundraising management system could be easily replaced and enhanced with Evo 365, while bespoke operational features would require a mix of custom development and integrations.

The decision was taken by both parties to adopt an agile approach, with a regular two-week sprint cycle, weekly stand-ups and a strong emphasis on communication, especially with both teams collaborating entirely remotely.

Fundraising

Seeking a system with modern fundraising capabilities, Charlie Waller also wanted the ability to manage, process and report on donations, simplify processes such as GiftAid and make finance easier for their internal teams.

With a host of features developed in collaboration with other charities, Evo 365 was an ideal fit to achieve this, and replace the existing fundraising management system.

“Evo 365 is our charity accelerator for Dynamics 365, which we’ve developed at Chorus in collaboration with many other NFPs. An accelerator is essentially a series of pre-built software customisations, that enable non-profit organisations to quickly gain charity-specific functionality in Dynamics 365, without having to develop it from scratch, saving charities time and money.”

Richard Graves, Business Apps Manager at Chorus

Because Evo 365 provided the required fundraising functionality out-of-the-box, the initial phase of the project was straightforward.
By adopting a ‘Minimum Viable Product’ (MVP) approach, Charlie Waller could start using the fundamental fundraising components of the system earlier in the project, gaining value straight away.

Creating bespoke operational functionality

With a working MVP fundraising system in place, the subsequent phases of the project focused on custom development to create bespoke operational functionality.

The two teams continued to communicate over time, allowing for discussions about the potential for new functionality as and when needed, with progressive refinements taking place.

“Charities have to work under a lot of constraints, which meant we worked very closely with Charlie Waller to ensure that any new functionality would deliver genuine business value. At Chorus, one of our core values is “champion the truth”, so we’d always seek to understand “what and why” new features were requested, enabling us to determine the best way to achieve it and to ensure it was a worthwhile investment for Charlie Waller”

Nick Murdock, Senior Technical Architect at Chorus

New features included Charlie Waller’s training requirements, session bookings, receipt tracking, support groups and more, requiring Chorus to create custom APIs for seamless integration with Charlie Waller’s website and Azure functions for security, validation, and so on.

Outcomes

The implementation of Dynamics 365 with Evo 365 has transformed Charlie Waller Trust’s capabilities, enabling them to manage their fundraising and key operational processes, all within a single system.

The project’s success is testament to the excellent partnership between the two organisations, demonstrating what’s possible with a clear vision, flexible technology, the right project approach, and great collaboration.

Chorus have been a source of great help and enjoyable to work with, guiding us through the project from the initial kick off right up to today. The consultancy and advice have proved invaluable, helping us be selective about which features to add to our system to maximise the value we’re getting from it.

Carrie GreenFinance and Operations Manager at The Charlie Waller Trust

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