A helping hand
The partnership between Girikon and GIM remains strong, and Maheen has nothing but praise for Yiannis and his colleagues.
“We’re a dynamic organisation with unique giving options,” she says. “Girikon gave us confidence that they would develop a custom solution that would enable us to not only manage our relationship with constituents, but also handle our campaigns through Salesforce. It’s much more cost-effective than the previous third-party platform.”
“Yiannis and the team helped us navigate the whole process and develop a solution that fits our needs. As expected, there have been teething issues with website maintenance and integration, though not with Girikon’s implementation. But having the Girikon team on hand for support has been very helpful. They’re very responsive.”
Maheen goes so far as to say that the Girikon team feels like an extension upon GIM’s own staff.
“They’re hands-on and always ready to respond to any questions and dilemmas,” she says. “I admit my technical skills are quite limited, so it helped that the team was always very hands-on. Overall, the experience was great – I cannot fault the team.”
When a late-night issue arose after launch, the Girikon team was on hand and ready to respond straight away.
“We really appreciated that,” says Maheen.
Yiannis says that across all of Girikon’s projects, one thing remains constant: the personal touch.
“Most of our clients are small and nimble, and sometimes don’t have the technical ability to make those decisions,” he says. “So we try to take the ‘tech’ out of conversations and focus, without dumbing it down, on the core of what we’re trying to achieve – in this case, social impact.”
A worthwhile investment
For Maheen, the lasting lesson has been about how transformative the right upfront investment in change can be.
“We’ve spent quite a bit on Salesforce development in the past year, but we’ve already seen the benefits of it in terms of automating some of our work and improving organisational efficiencies. This means we can focus more on delivering impact for vulnerable children globally.”
One of those benefits is being able to respond quickly to the world’s needs because any changes to donation campaigns can be reflected on the website instantly. Thanks to that, GIM could launch emergency appeals such as raising over AU$10,000 almost immediately for people impacted by the flood in Pakistan.
An ongoing impact
Having achieved strong results with Salesforce Solutions, GIM is on its way to achieving full automation of its donation processes, which will free its small team from unimportant admin tasks.
By doing so, GIM aims to be able to not only connect more deeply with its donors but also connect its donors with their beneficiaries on the ground, thus amplifying its social impacts.
With Girikon’s involvement, GIM now has considerably more flexibility and oversight when setting up appeals and campaigns. It’s a change that makes their efforts to raise funds for vulnerable and orphaned children globally all the more impactful.
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