Ronald McDonald House Charities Portugal: A Salesforce Success Story

At Ronald McDonald House Charities Portugal, the journey of providing a ‘home away from home’ for families with children undergoing hospital treatment is critical. A small team of 13 staff manages two houses in Porto and Lisbon, playrooms, and a family room in another hospital in Lisbon. They support over a thousand families annually. But as their impact grew, so did the complexities of managing their operations. Under the leadership of Isabel Aragão, the House Manager in Porto, and Marta Pires, the Executive Director, they embarked on a transformative journey with Salesforce to streamline their processes and elevate their vital service delivery.

The Challenge

Before implementing Salesforce, the team’s operations relied heavily on Excel spreadsheets and Word documents. Over 300 volunteers were managed across multiple locations, family stays were tracked, and impact reporting efforts were handled manually. This not only consumed vast amounts of time but also led to challenges in maintaining accurate and up-to-date records. Isabel, who has a small team of four people, found herself dedicating 75% of her time to these manual tasks. Reports that should have taken days were taking weeks to compile, and the sheer volume of data was overwhelming.

The Technology Needing to be Replaced:

– 30 + Excel Spreadsheets
– Word Documents
– Manual Processes across three hospitals, serving 1,000 families.

“We wanted a system that would allow us to be proactive, as we’ve always been reactive as a small but passionate team wanting to do the best for our families who stay with us. The information we gathered across two locations was scattered, making decision-making a lengthy and often complicated process” Isabel recalls.

The team wanted:

• One single source of truth as their CRM to replace the 30+ spreadsheets used to manage the Families and Volunteering Information and Impact Reporting
• A System which would allow them to move away from spreadsheets to allow them to be able to pull data easily
• A central system used by everyone so that all data and information is reliable.
• A system could hold important information, such as House Contracts that families sign when staying at Ronald McDonald House hospital accommodation.
• A way of gathering information quickly for Impact Reports as it was taking weeks of the team’s time.

The Solution Created by Raise N’GO

The team chose to work with Raise N’GO due to their deep understanding of the nonprofit sector. Isabel shared:

“Tiago’s deep knowledge, having worked extensively with nonprofits, was instrumental in our decision. His expertise allowed him to grasp our unique challenges quickly, and he tailored Salesforce in a way that truly supports our mission to serve our families and volunteers better.“

Marta said, “Recognizing the need for a more efficient system, we turned to Salesforce, which is already used by 80% of Ronald McDonald Houses worldwide. However, our implementation was unique; unlike most chapters, we focused first on managing our families and volunteers, with fundraising as a potential future phase.”

Before building anything on Salesforce, the team decided to use it to rethink their processes and procedures so that there was a new, easier, and more efficient way of doing things on Salesforce, enabling time savings and efficiencies. When they had decided what this looked like, they worked with Raise N’GO to understand how this would work on Salesforce.

The team at Raise N’GO built a solution that included:

• Salesforce CRM for Program Management and Volunteers Management
• Integrated WEB Page to submit family requests from Hospitals (current Institutional website in WordPress)
• Volunteers Application (current Institutional website in WordPress)

The Impact of this Digital Transformation Project

With a new shiny system, the Ronald McDonald House Portugal team started to see the benefits of using Salesforce to manage their work. Besides the new tools, the team was challenged to re-design key processes based on the capabilities of automation and systems integrations. The team (staff and volunteers) was equipped and skilled to work in a new way and through cutting-edge technology.

Isabel shared:

“The introduction of Salesforce has revolutionized our operations. With a single database, we can generate reports and dashboards in just a couple of days—a task that took three weeks. This has not only saved time but has also improved the accuracy and reliability of our data. Stakeholders, including hospital administrators, have noted the increased organization and clarity in our impact reports, strengthening our relationships and boosting our credibility.”

Some of the main benefits are:

Volunteer Management: This has seen significant improvements. The system now tracks the hours of over 400 volunteers using a simple QR code system that logs their shifts directly into Salesforce. They scan the QR Code when entering the building, and it automatically logs their shift in Salesforce.

Volunteer Recruitment: This used to involve sifting through hundreds of handwritten applications; it is now streamlined, allowing us to match volunteers to projects based on their skills and availability digitally, which is far easier. The team also have an automated communications process set up, which allows volunteers to receive communications from the team about their application.

“We can now be more proactive, analyzing our data to make informed decisions rather than just reacting to immediate needs,” Isabel explains.

Finding Specific Skills: Searching for skills in a nonprofit is essential when it comes to volunteering, and now the team can search based on skillset.

Signed Contracts: Salesforce now holds all digital copies of the signed contracts our families sign with us, upon staying at the houses. This means all data is in one place.

Impact Reporting: 3 weeks of work has been condensed into 2 days of work for each impact report we create, as we can pull information off the one system. Salesforce has made this so much easier.

As the team uses Salesforce, these time savings, impacts on the families and scale of the volunteering will likely increase.

Working with Raise N’GO:

We asked Marta and Isabel how working with us was for them, and here’s what they shared:

“Working with Raise N’Go has been a transformative experience for our charity. The team at Raise N’GO, led by Tiago, brought an exceptional level of expertise and understanding of the nonprofit sector, which made the collaboration both effective and impactful.

Their deep knowledge of our unique challenges allowed them to tailor Salesforce precisely to our needs, ensuring that the system supports our operations seamlessly. One of the key benefits of working with Raise N’Go has been their ability to integrate complex processes into a user-friendly platform, empowering our team to manage data more efficiently and focus on our core mission.

The partnership has not only enhanced our day-to-day operations but has also set us up for sustainable growth and continued success in serving the families who rely on our support.”