Shelter Case Study

CRM system selection

About the organisation

Shelter helps millions of people every year who are struggling with bad housing or homelessness and campaigns for better investment in housing, and laws and policies to improve their lives.

The challenge

Shelter approached Adapta to support them through the selection process for a replacement CRM system. Their current system wasn’t deemed sufficient for their fundraising ambitions and they had decided to look at a range of alternatives. They had previously attended some of Adapta’s seminars and we had helped Shelter with information systems issues in the past, so we were their first port of call for assistance.

Adapta support

The first step was to develop outline development documentation. We worked collaboratively with Shelter which had excellent resources in-house and they were able to produce high quality documentation. We offered guidance and support and helped to refine documents to make them as relevant and useful as possible. A comprehensive list of suppliers was eventually whittled down to a shortlist of four which was a mix of platform solution providers including Salesforce Solution, ThankQ from Access Group, Care from Advanced NFP and Microsoft Dynamics. Adapta prepared the agenda for presentations and liaised with suppliers. On the day the four were reduced to a final list of three. From here we moved on to the prototyping stage and helped Shelter develop the brief and the specification to define the type of system suppliers would build, and the issues that might occur. We then assisted them through briefing sessions with the suppliers. Shelter teams then spent several weeks meeting representatives from each of the suppliers who discussed their requirements in more detail. We arranged the prototyping day and spent the day with the teams from Shelter. Our help in designing the structure for the day, as well as briefing the participant suppliers so they knew what to expect, ensured we made the best use of the time available. Afterwards we collected feedback and put Shelter in a position to make the final choice. After some further due diligence and discussions over implementation, project management, and planning they were able to make their final decision.

Shelter
Stuart McSkimming
Head of IT

“Adapta provided expert independent consultancy to Shelter, helping us to choose a new Supporter CRM. Adapta's knowledge of the subject is invaluable, and this gave Shelter the assistance and reassurance it needed to make a good procurement decision.”