Non-Profit Agency Receives Database Upgrade
The Challenge
The Neighborhood Self Employment Initiative (NSI) is a nonprofit agency that helps people turn their dreams of starting a small business into a reality. This fast-growing organization will serve 2500 clients this year with the goal of increasing the average annual income for that group from $7,000 to $40,000. Unfortunately, NSI's data-management system was unable to keep pace with the organization?s rapid growth. Sharon O'Donoghue, director of the Women's Business Center at NSI, said "we were an organization that did not have any client information management system." The NSI was tracking its 75 volunteers and 26 donor foundations in a single excel spreadsheet. Besides being inefficient and inconvenient, the old system fell short of the requirements of the Small Business Administration, one of the NSI's main funders.
NSI was in a lose/lose situation. Not upgrading the database would jeopardize funding from the SBA and hinder future progress. But new technology services are expensive, and NSI did not want to have to sacrifice the quality of its core programs to make the upgrade. NSI needed to find an affordable way to upgrade their system before the deadline set by the SBA. This is where NPower stepped in.
The Solution
Once contacted by NSI, NPower "rolled up its sleeves," putting in well over 100 hours to create a new, SBA compliant database. This new database provided far greater functionality than the previous system. It gave NSI the ability to track information on clients, volunteer participants, programs and services, population, and more.
The Impact
"NPower made it a win/win!" said Sharon O'Donoghue. The new database created by NPower was much more powerful, and also allowed NSI to retain SBA funding without cutting into the budgets of other programs. NSI has received feedback indicating that the program and its compliance with SBA requirements are well ahead of others. NPower is helping the Neighborhood Self Employment Initiative become and sustain itself as a top 20 program nationally.
