Colorado Association of Non-Profit Organizations (CANPO)
On behalf of all of us associated with the Colorado Association of Nonprofit Organizations
(CANPO) as well as the 1200 nonprofit agencies making up our membership, I want
to let you know how much we are benefiting from using the iMIS nonprofit software
that we purchased from your company.
Even for a "marginal" computer person like me, finding and retrieving information
from iMIS is very easily accomplished. This system gives us a very simple way to
track our members, associates, and donors yet can produce the sophisticated reports
we need.
We would be happy to demonstrate our system to other nonprofit organizations who
may be deciding whether or not to purchase the system for themselves.
Sincerely,
Barbara J. Shaw
Executive Director
Pheasants Forever
Pheasants Forever Gains a New Edge for Members with iMIS
Pheasants Forever is a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection and enhancement
of pheasant and other wildlife populations in North America through habitat improvement,
land management, public awareness, and education. Since its inception, Pheasants
Forever and its more than 100,000 members have developed and preserved more than
three million acres of pheasant and other wildlife habitat.
Undertaking the kind of projects at the core of Pheasants Forever's mission requires
extensive fund raising efforts. Its 600 chapters complete more than 25,000 of these
types of projects annually. For four years Pheasants Forever relied on Blackbaud's
Raisers Edge to manage its fund raising needs. However, it soon became apparent
that the membership needs facing Pheasants Forever were being severely neglected.
Time to Change
Pheasants Forever realized it needed a solution that handled its membership needs
equally as well as it handled fund raising. After some searching, Pheasants Forever
concluded that iMIS was the best solution to handle all of its needs.
"We needed to switch from our current system to iMIS because we needed a fund-raising
system that was also a complete membership system and iMIS was the only solution
that handled both," said Diane Weyandt, Pheasants Forever Membership Director.
After working with Authorized iMIS Solution Provider ATS, and completing its on-time,
on-budget installation of iMIS, Pheasants Forever quickly began to see improvements
in its operations.
"With iMIS, we can better solicit our customers because we have a good profile on
each of them," added Weyandt. "We know how much money they donated, if they had
attended a certain banquet, which funds they donated to, and more. We had tried
to track this information in our previous system, but just couldn't get the information
out of the program."
Everyone's Happy Now
While Pheasants Forever is enjoying the benefits of the switch to iMIS, its customers
have also been pleased with the results of the change.
"With iMIS we also have happier customers," noted Weyandt. "iMIS makes us look smarter.
We can answer our customer's questions in one phone call, because all of their information
is right there on one screen. For example, we can quickly see when their gun case
went out or what date their premium came in. We don't have to hunt down that information
and call them back later."
The Pheasants Forever staff members were also glad to see the switch take place.
"For the four years that we had Blackbaud, we were losing employees because they
were unhappy working 45-50 hours a week, on evenings and weekends, from February
to June to keep up with the data entry," said Weyandt. "With iMIS we now are able
to meet deadlines and send out magazines to constituents on a timely basis. Many
of our 600 chapters hold banquets in the spring and send us their attendee lists
so we can enter the data into the system in time for them to receive the next edition
of our magazine. All of which means we're working under a tight deadline. With our
old system, we had to go in and out of screens for data entry, but with iMIS everything
is right there on one screen."
Someone's Always There
In addition to the success Pheasants Forever has experienced using iMIS, having
access to an award winning technical support team and easy access to local support
ATS has been an added bonus and welcome change from its previous system.
"Support is the best part of iMIS," said Weyandt. "Support is available locally.
When we call Authorized iMIS Solution Provider ATS's offices in Denver, they call
us right back. You could call Blackbaud all day and they wouldn't call you back,
and when they did, they didn't have an answer to your problem. With iMIS I feel
like we are truly customers for life."