Customer Stories > Garden House Hospice

We have scaled our volunteer management with the help of Salesforce

Garden House Hospice offers personalised and compassionate palliative end of life care for those in need following a diagnosis of a life limiting illness. It’s Compassionate Neighbours project offers social and emotional support along with providing a wide range of free services to patients, their carers and families in the community. They have supported over 230,000 people.

The Challenge

  • They had no centralised system to manage data
  • Volunteer applications, member registrations and the feedback process was handled manually inviting people to complete word document forms. The process was slow over 4-6 weeks.
  • Data was then transferred and managed over multiple spreadsheets
  • There was no standard process to manage the match between the Volunteer and the Member.
  • The administration time required for accurate reporting resulted in long admin hours.

The Solution

Garden House Hospice benefited from our Small Charity Discount Package.

  • We implemented Salesforce CRM with NPSP, which was used to store all contacts and their engagements.
  • Custom objects gave them ability to match and track the relationship between a Volunteer and Community Members.
  • It was mobile friendly, due to customising the page profiles and creating a custom object app to deploy using tablets which allowed live data access on the go.
  • Use of third-party online form tool, Form Assembly, simplified and enhanced the application, referral and feedback process.
  • We customised Reports and Dashboards to collate, analyse and report on new applications, service delivery and measure impact.

“The application process has been completely transformed and its efficiency much improved. Before the implementation of Salesforce, a application would take between 4-6 weeks from first touch to being able to get involved. The automation put in place which fast-tracks all the processes around DBS and training allow for volunteers to get going as soon as they have finished the training. This drastically reduces drop off as volunteers are able to get started while still being excited from the training.

Referral of members is similar in that it is quicker and much more responsive. Client confidentially is also more assured through the secure online system and this has a positive impact on referrals.

Reporting to funders (such as Big Lottery funding) has become so much quicker as the team no longer needs to wade through data on spreadsheets. They can also be very responsive to new funders who are asking different questions. For example Hertfordshire County Council needed postcode areas and this information was readily available and easy to report on. This definitely makes the charity look very efficient and on top of their work.” 

Richard Julian, Community Development Manager, Garden House Hospice

The Results

  • Having one centralized system has transformed their working pattern.
  • A lot of tasks are now automated, which has reduced their workload
  • Time saved has enabled them to support more members.
  • Staff are confident in using new technology
  • Impact Reporting – No more excel sheets, now have a clear and up to date Dashboards

Currently the charity has 250 volunteers on the Compassionate Neighbours Project but with Salesforce they intend to bring up to 700 volunteers onto the system

80-90% of staff functionality is on the system so there is room to use it more but uptake has been significant because of the lockdowns which need people to work remotely.

Being able to have meetings and knowing that data is up to date – from a pandemic response view has been a lifesaver!

GDPR compliance is also very reassuring as they are no longer worried about losing paperwork. Its peace of mind to know that everyone is compliant

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