Based in Australia, Peak Fundraising Systems collaborates with charities worldwide to generate real income growth and provide more services to their beneficiaries. Peak’s software and consultancy supports the fundraising programs of some of the world’s largest nonprofit organizations. The team helps clients maximize their return and build sustainable long-term programs.
For nonprofits that rely on donors to support their charitable causes, fundraising efforts are critical. Built by fundraisers, for fundraisers, digital solutions from Peak Fundraising Systems aim to help nonprofits maximize their campaigns. The company’s platform provides key insights into the performance of fundraising programs so organizations can improve donor retention and sign up the right donors. To make sure Peak provides the best experience to its nonprofit customers, it collaborated with AWS Premier Partner DNX Solutions to create an automated system that uses near real-time data analysis. In fact, the new system helps nonprofits analyse their campaigns and find the insights they need 94 percent faster than before.
Embarking on a Mission to Solve Charities’ Biggest Pain Point
With resource constraints, limited access to expertise, and high costs of keeping pace with technology, it can be challenging for charities to gain meaningful insights into their fundraising programs. For most nonprofits, the process to determine the success of a campaign and to pinpoint potential donors involves hours of manual data entry. This task can be so time-intensive, that using analytics to drive decision-making might only occur once a year. Without timely insights, charities can’t proactively adapt their fundraising programs, which reduces the likelihood that they will see a return on their investment (ROI). Recognising these challenges, Peak wanted to build a system on Amazon Web Services (AWS) that would help charities increase donor retention, identify promising donors, boost recurrent giving, and use their fundraising budgets more efficiently.
Shifting Performance Analysis from Hindsight to Forecasts
To start, Peak searched for a solution that would bring together and analyse data in near-real time, automating processes that were previously holding charities back. The team explored options that could grow with the customer, were easy to use, visualized data, and offered low-effort reporting. Peak landed on Amazon QuickSight, a solution that unifies business intelligence at hyperscale. “We had been measuring a snapshot of a donor at a given point in time, but with this solution, we could provide charities with an understanding of donors over any period,” said Paul Twomey, general manager at Peak Fundraising System. “Being able to map that over time helps charities better understand the return they are getting on their efforts, which can greatly improve their fundraising programs.”
To make this vision a reality, AWS connected Peak with DNX Solutions, an AWS Premier Consulting Partner that specialises in cloud-driven transformation. DNX worked with Peak to understand its current and future goals, creating a plan using AWS solutions to automate what nonprofits had been doing manually. DNX also considered factors such as security and regional growth. “Our approach involves both technical capability and business acumen,” said Kelly Griffin, chief technology officer at DNX. “In addition to finding the right design and timelines for Peak, we helped the team communicate the business value that got stakeholder buy-in.”
Using Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) to store data at virtually any scale, Amazon Athena for flexible querying, and Amazon QuickSight, to visualise the data in a dashboard interface, Peak can provide its customers with a more comprehensive snapshot of their donors. “The system helps charities take a forecast approach to fundraising efforts instead of learning what went wrong in hindsight, which helps managers improve their programs much more effectively,” said Twomey. “And it’s a business-friendly tool that allows people to collaborate without needing to think about it.” With guidance from DNX, Peak built a system that provides immediate insight into donors and fundraising performance, bringing rapid transparency to nonprofits, saving them time and increasing the success of their efforts. The system automatically imports data from customer relationship management platforms in near-real time so nonprofits can drill down on individual fundraisers. With simplified reporting, they can also visualise that data to determine which donors to further invest in. Having these insights ready to go allows nonprofits to shape their campaigns in midstream.
As a partner that caters to the unique needs of small- and medium-sized businesses, DNX has helped Peak take advantage of advanced, enterprise-grade technology. At the same time, working with DNX has led to more robust cloud security and access to reliable support. “AWS and DNX have helped us to measure what matters so that our customers can manage their campaigns proactively in real time, which is absolutely critical for success,” Twomey said.
Nonprofits Reduce Time to Insights by 94%
Without using Peak’s system, it would take roughly two days for nonprofits to find the fundraising insights they need and create a meaningful report. With Peak, that process takes just two hours—netting a 94 percent decrease. Additionally, because Peak allows charities to do this on their own instead of hiring a third-party firm to compile the data, Peak’s customers save tens of thousands of dollars annually. With those savings, nonprofits can invest more in programs specific to their cause. “Through this process, we emphasized iteration so that Peak had a product that was immediately consumable and helps Peak provide excellent service to its nonprofit customers,” Griffin said.
Since launching the new and improved system, Peak has supported notable clients, including some of the largest charities in Australia and New Zealand, which have seen significant results—including all-time high retention rates of repeat donors. “We’ve been using Peak Insights for a number of years and it has helped us drive record-breaking retention rates in both Australia and New Zealand for our charity partners,” said Mathew Hunt, head of F2F fundraising for Australia and New Zealand. “It’s fantastic news that Peak is able to offer this service more broadly!”
Looking ahead, Peak aims to tackle more complicated issues specific to nonprofits in collaboration with DNX. “The goal now is to map out the next feature set based on what charities have asked us to do, such as providing insights on upgrade programs and identifying gaps in the donor journey using Amazon QuickSight,” Twomey said.
AWS and DNX help us to measure what matters so that our customers can manage their campaigns proactively in real time.
Paul Twomey – General Manager, Peak FundraisingSystems
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