Revolutionising Operations: Wishlist’s Journey with infoodle
Discover how Wishlist, the Sunshine Coast Health Foundation, reshaped its operations with infoodle. Faced with challenges in efficiency and communication using Blackbaud NXT, Wishlist shares insights into their swift transition and the game-changing impact infoodle had on their administration and collaborative efforts.
infoodle: Firstly, could you please provide some insights into your organisation and its activities?
Wishlist: Wishlist is the Sunshine Coast Health Foundation, dedicated to supporting local health services in areas such as Nambour, Caloundra, Maleny, Gympie hospitals, and the Sunshine Coast University Hospital. With the support of a generous community, Wishlist has raised over $22 million, contributing to the enhancement of the local health system. Our mission is to collaborate with SCHHS and the communities it serves, ensuring the well-being of Queenslanders through the provision of medical equipment, service support, education, and research.
infoodle: What prompted you to search for a new CRM or donor management system? What issues were you facing with your previous system?
Wishlist: There were two main reasons for the change. Firstly, our team found it challenging to use Blackbaud NXT efficiently, causing them to avoid it, as each goal required a different plugin which added on more costs and didn’t perform as expected. Moreover, getting support was slow and cumbersome. A big issue for us was very poor email deliverability rates. We tried shifting to Mailchimp for outbound communication but ended up with similar delivery issues, leading us to look for another solution.
infoodle: How was the onboarding process for you? Did you opt for a big bang approach or a gradual rollout? Would you recommend this approach to others?
Wishlist: We opted for a big bang approach to have the change over done as quickly as possible but have gradually incorporated legacy data from Blackbaud. Working closely with infoodle, we identified, translated, and imported our data. The transfer was done in one day due to the excellent support provided by the team at infoodle.
infoodle: What has been the primary benefit of transitioning to infoodle? Is there a standout feature that has significantly improved your operations?
Wishlist: Several aspects stood out. Consolidating all our data in one place fostered greater collaboration within the team and gave us a better view of important information to make more informed decisions. Departments like communications and finance, now liaise daily, resulting in more targeted and effective communications. Integration with Xero saved us considerable time, and the ability to create custom forms made capturing data a lot easier and more streamlined. infoodle’s support has been amazing, always resulting in timely responses and resolutions.
A notable improvement is our enhanced ability to access and interpret information. For instance, the new system revealed that one of our donors holds a lifetime value of $80,000, a massive contrast to the limited view in our old system, which initially led us to believe the value was only $7,000.
infoodle: How has infoodle addressed the pain points mentioned earlier?
Wishlist: infoodle has transformed our communication, making it more effective and targeted (internally and externally), leading to a significant increase in their success rate. Collaborative efforts within the team have increased, and the platform’s simplicity has significantly improved usability. Taking and distributing board minutes through infoodle has been another unexpected function that has benefited our board members.
infoodle: What unexpected impacts has the transition to infoodle had on your organisation or community?
Wishlist: The most noteworthy unexpected impact has been the increased collaboration within our team, leading to a positive cultural transformation. Having a centralised system has allowed for seamless sharing of information and collaboration on tasks and projects, having clearer visibility of data has contributed to the removal of barriers that previously hindered good communication. Everyone working on the same platform has encouraged teamwork and improved our collective efforts.
infoodle: Do you have any advice or words of wisdom for others contemplating a move to infoodle?
Wishlist: Formerly dealing with disjointed, difficult software, we now operate within an easy-to-view, collaborative system. The ability to access comprehensive donor information that reveals a donor’s true lifetime value is a vital element for any not-for-profit platform and something that was not possible with our old system. Segmenting and targeting communications has significantly increased our success rates, another crucial aspect for any organisation in this sector. infoodle has proven to be a transformative solution for us that we can confidently say would be the same for many other charitable organisations like ours.
