United Way



|Overview | | |“The Microsoft-based tools provide the scorecards and KPIs to drive accountability across the |

|Country: Canada | | |organization. It’s really helping us more efficiently manage resources and campaign donor |

|Industry: Non-Profit | | |information.” |

| | | |Keyth James, Vice President of IT, United Way Toronto |

|Customer Profile | | | |

|Coalition (BTC) is a group of Canadian United| | | |

|Way organizations working together to | | | |

|maximize their impact on improving lives and | | | |

|neighbourhoods across Canada. | | | |

| | | | |

|Business Situation | | | |

|As a non-profit organization with four | | | |

|national offices, United Way was looking for | | | |

|a simpler and timelier way to produce year | | | |

|end analytical reports based on its yearly | | | |

|campaign. | | | |

| | | | |

|Solution | | | |

|Working with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner| | | |

|MRS Company Ltd., United Way deployed | | | |

|Microsoft Office PerformancePoint™ Server | | | |

|2007 to produce timely, analytical reports. | | | |

| | | | |

|Benefits | | | |

|Increased analytical capabilities | | | |

|Deeper collaboration and stronger business | | | |

|insight | | | |

|Enhanced performance and transparencey | | | |

| | | | |

| | | |The Business Transformation Coalition (BTC) is a group of Canadian United Way organizations working |

| | | |together to maximize their impact on improving lives and neighbourhoods across Canada. Through the |

| | | |collaboration of four offices (Calgary, Lower Mainland, Winnipeg, and lead by Toronto) the BTC |

| | | |oversees a variety of initiatives, including the implementation of a data warehouse. They needed a |

| | | |better way to analyze and understand donor trends, track and monitor campaign results and report to |

| | | |donors how their investments impact their communities. To do this United Way developed a new business|

| | | |intelligence platform based on Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005, Office SharePoint® Server 2007 and Office|

| | | |PerformancePoint™ Server 2007 – ProClarity Analytics. The new system will boost productivity and |

| | | |fundraising efficiency by helping United Way staff collaborate, develop timely reports and |

| | | |effectively plan, monitor and analyze campaign results. |

| | | | |

Situation

The United Way is dedicated to improving lives and strengthening neighbourhoods across Canada by raising money for local groups that address community issues. The non-profit organization takes action through partnerships with networks of health and social service agencies.

Fundraising is an essential component of the United Way’s community-building initiatives, and the organization prides itself on its strong accounting practices, cost controls and governance processes. Transparency is also important. United Way has a mandate to closely monitor and track fundraising and campaign profits and make that information available to the public. As well, staff at United Way’s BTC offices meticulously compile and analyze data to help the organization grow.

According to Keyth James, Vice President of IT, United Way Toronto, in order to more closely track and monitor performance and better understand how donor money is used, the organization sought a scalable IT solution that could provide a 360-degree view of their partners, agencies communities, workplaces and donors using data from various databases. In particular, the organization wanted a more efficient way of accurately assessing donation performance while campaigns were underway.

“The United Way continues to grow dynamically through workplace campaigns and annual fundraising efforts. We needed to track these transactions more accurately while also ensuring that our report data is compiled quickly and accurately,” says James.

The previous data management platform, however, was proving to be a challenge causing inflexible reporting practices and the inability to perform important analytics on campaign results. Staff would manipulate large spreadsheets and require several months to complete their reporting after the yearly campaign ended. Each office conducted its own reporting, but there was no standardized process and reports required significant effort to produce.

“Employees need the ability to quickly perform analysis into a sector of the campaign, drill down and identify which sectors are underperforming, and be able to quickly react, as opposed to waiting until the end of the campaign,” says James.

Solution

United Way worked with Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner M.R.S Company Ltd. to develop a new Business Intelligence (BI) platform. The organization decided that a new IT foundation leveraging SQL Server™ 2005, Office SharePoint® Server 2007 and Office PerformancePoint™ Server 2007 – ProClarity Analytics would be the best fit based on cost, scalability and key features like collaboration and performance management.

The organization is using the data management capabilities of SQL Server 2005 to ensure that data from United Way’s fundraising and donor campaigns are stored in a central directory. From a collaboration perspective, United Way was impressed with the tight integration with SharePoint Server 2007, which enabled United Way to develop an intranet site where users can find predefined reports for data analysis.

By leveraging the ProClarity Analytics tools within PerformancePoint Server 2007, users also have access to a personalized dashboard that helps track Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) required to manage donor and financial data.

“The new IT platform helps United Way staff deliver faster analysis and integrated visibility into fundraising campaign data. This includes enhanced monitoring, analyzing, forecasting and planning capabilities through a familiar, easy-to use interface,” says Dave Robson, BI Practice Manager, M.R.S. Company.

Benefits

United Way now has a more comprehensive BI platform that provides a better way for workers to access and manage fundraising data. The new platform boosts productivity and fundraising efficiency by helping staff collaborate, develop more timely reports and more effectively store, share and access information in real-time.

“The Microsoft-based tools help provide us with the scorecards and KPIs we need to drive improved accountability across the organization. It also gives us the flexibility to more efficiently manage resources and campaign donor information. This better positions us to deliver on our community impact mandate,” says James.

Increased Analytical Capabilities

The new integrated data environment is helping United Way ensure greater accuracy and security across the company. Staff now has easy access to consistent data and the ability to create a wider variety of reports that deliver flexible, in-depth analysis.

“The new Microsoft-based IT platform has allowed us to deliver a deeper view into our SQL Server data in a way that is easier and more recognizable. Users can see and share the most updated reports with one another,” says James. “More importantly, reports that were previously taking four days to complete now are done in a few hours – it’s been a tremendous help in improving our overall productivity.”

Better Business Insight

United Way is now able to easily access data from any office. The BI capabilities in PerformancePoint Server allow employees to quickly access and verify data residing on SharePoint Server 2007. As a result, staff now has a more holistic and analytical view of company activities, including deeper insight into top donors and the ability to more closely track and monitor campaign results.

“This means that United Way can now verify data and results on a specific day of the campaign, and compare it the same day of the previous year’s campaign. It’s allowing them to boost office collaboration across regional offices, share best practices and conduct accurate and timely analytics in a way they never could before,” says Robson.

Enhanced Performance and Transparency

United Way is now better able to ensure consistent measurement of fundraising results throughout the organization. United Way can easily track and monitor donor data and make better sense of data analysis. With a 360-degree view of internal processes, staff can better track trends and opportunities – allowing for better future fundraising planning and initiatives.

“The integrated BI solution is not only intuitive and easy to use, it also helps deliver significant strategic value to our organization. Simply put, the ability to reduce manual processes and quickly produce in depth yearly campaign reports enables us to better understand where we were, where we are and to forecast for the future,” says James.

Microsoft Business Intelligence

Microsoft provides an end-to-end, enterprise-grade and cost-effective BI solution utilizing the intuitive Microsoft Office 2007 suite and robust BI components of SQL Server 2005 to enable decision makers throughout the organization to drive increased performance.

For more information about the Microsoft Business Intelligence, go to: bi

Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007

Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 provides all of the functionality that is needed for performance management including scorecards, dashboards, management reporting, analytics, planning, budgeting, forecasting, and consolidation. The application reaches all employees, across all business functions (finance, operations, marketing, sales, and human resources).

For more information about the Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007, go to: performancepoint

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“The integrated BI solution is not only intuitive and easy to use, it also helps deliver significant strategic value to our organization. Simply put, the ability to reduce manual processes and quickly produce in depth yearly c浡慰杩敲潰瑲⁳湥扡敬⁳獵琠敢瑴牥甠摮牥瑳湡⁤桷牥⁥敷眠牥ampaign reports enables us to better understand where we were, where we are and to forecast for the future.”

Keyth James

Vice President of IT

United Way

© 2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published March, 2008

| |Software and Services

• PerformancePoint Server 2007

• SQL Server 2005

• SharePoint Server 2007

|Partner

• M.R.S. Company Ltd. | |

For More Information

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For more information about M.R.S. Company Ltd. products and services, call (604) 602-1700 or visit the Web site at:

For more information about United Way products and services, call (416) 777-2001 or visit the Web site at:

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