Internal Communications Improved

by Intervention

Getting everyone ‘on board’ for a new initiative can be challenging and time-consuming. The Refugee Council achieved it by using some third-party intervention.

Situation

The fundraising and marketing teams at the Refugee Council had identified the need for a new CRM solution to manage their fundraising and marketing activities. Funding for the project took some time to secure, but when it was finally achieved, a review of the industry standard systems was undertaken. Progress, the Fisk Brett solution was selected as the most appropriate for Refugee Council’s needs.

Challenges

Although the sponsoring teams acknowledged the need for support for the project from both the charity’s IT and finance teams, this support was difficult to secure as there had been a high turnover of staff in both functions since the initial purchase decision had been made. No one in the current IT or finance teams had been part of the original decision-making process. The fact that some recent IT projects were perceived as less successful in delivering anticipated benefits further hampered ‘buy-in’ to the CRM project.

To prevent the project stalling, Fisk Brett suggested some independent, objective help to Tim Finch, the Refugee’s Council’s Director of Communications. Purple Vision were recommended as having the necessary understanding of CRM projects and experience of managing internal communications to be capable of securing the necessary cross-organisational buy-in.

Solution

Purple Vision’s systems director, Keith Collins, met with key representatives of each team, consolidated feedback and produced recommendations as to how the project should best address the concerns of each of the respective groups.

Purple Vision also recommended that formal project management methodology be applied to the project – and helped draft a Terms of Reference, clarifying project scope, objectives, budgets and timelines – so everybody involved knew what had been committed.

Benefits

The benefits of Purple Vision’s intervention in the Refugee Council project are summarised by Tim Finch;

“The CRM  project was in danger of stalling. By communicating with the various teams involved – IT, finance, marketing and fundraising, Keith was able to clarify project objectives, help us to identify and start to manage key project risks and accelerate the start of implementation. The Terms of Reference document made a major contribution to cross-organisational support, as it provided a sound platform for the project itself and made sure everyone was clear about the responsibilities of the project team.”

Such was the success of the internal communications programme, Purple Vision were retained to manage the implementation of Progress for the Refugee Council. The system went live in July 2007 and is already delivering the benefits the charity wanted to allow its operations to grow.