Australian Cancer Research Foundation

Established in 1984, the Australian Cancer Research Foundation (ACRF) has evolved into one of Australia’s leading not-for-profit organisations. In 27 years, the ACRF has funded $79 million in grants to support leading Australian cancer research initiatives. Almost 70% of these funds have been awarded in just the last six years, reflecting the need for ongoing investment in medical research in Australia.

As a result of this incredible growth in the organisation, they were finding the pressure on the existing donor database was too much and extracting data for reporting became extremely difficult. To combat this the ACRF started using data silos but this meant they could not get a 360 view of their donors. As well as issues with the Donor database, their reliance on an ageing, pre-packaged system for NFP’s reduced the flexibility they needed to customize their solutions to fit their specific needs and processes.

ACRF went out to review possible alternatives and decided to run a comparison between The Raisers Edge and Salesforce. This comparison quickly allowed them to validate the theory that the biggest cost and time savings are to be had in the cloud. Database & Fundraising Coordinator Deborah Warner’s journey from reasonable scepticism to cloud computing convert began with an illuminating Dreamforce experience that revealed the enormous potential of cloud computing. ACRF were also able to take advantage of Salesforce’s philanthropic pricing structure acquiring 10 free licenses and a further 5 discounted licenses. Once signed up Deborah was able to attend local Nonprofit User Group meetings in Sydney to learn more about using Salesforce.

Since going live with Salesforce ACRF has the ability to capture and report more donor information, analyse trends and tailor information to donors more effectively, which means stronger donor relationships. To support their model and make every Dollar count, customised dashboards set up to monitor the KPI’s for each program have kept projects on track. Finally, after struggling for years with applications they could not customize, Warner was able to create a custom events app based on an AppExchange model in just one weekend, to manage invitations to the annual Chairman’s dinner.