A children’s hospital foundation achieved improved system efficiency,
data integrity, reduced costs, and an enhanced capacity to
deliver exceptional healthcare and support.

An esteemed children’s hospital foundation faced significant challenges as they transitioned from their legacy system, Raiser’s Edge, to Salesforce. This hospital foundation, dedicated to providing comprehensive healthcare, research, and support for children, needed a seamless and efficient system to manage their extensive donor relations, fundraising campaigns, and patient support programs. The migration process was prolonged, spanning several years, during which the hospital foundation operated in both systems concurrently. This dual-system operation necessitated intricate data syncing mechanisms, with data being pushed from Raiser’s Edge to a custom object in Salesforce. While this approach allowed for continued operations during the transition period, it led to the accumulation of extensive customizations and specialized objects within Salesforce.

As the hospital foundation fully transitioned away from Raiser’s Edge and focused on optimizing their Salesforce, they encountered a fundamental dilemma: the customizations and custom objects developed to facilitate data syncing now posed a challenge. These solutions often conflicted with the native functionalities and standard objects offered by Salesforce and the Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP). Consequently, the hospital foundation found themselves grappling with inefficiencies, maintenance overheads, and limitations in leveraging the full potential of Salesforce. These issues hindered their ability to maximize fundraising efforts, manage donor relationships effectively, and streamline administrative tasks crucial for their mission of delivering exceptional pediatric care.

Recognizing the need for a strategic overhaul, the hospital foundation embarked on a journey towards a more streamlined and sustainable solution. They engaged with us to complete a Path to Success, which involved conducting a comprehensive review of their Salesforce environment, adopting a people and process-centric approach. The objective was twofold: to assess the current state of their Salesforce instance and envision a future state aligned with their organizational objectives. This assessment aimed to enhance their ability to support clinical programs, research initiatives, and community outreach efforts by leveraging an optimized Salesforce environment.

Numerous discovery sessions were conducted, engaging stakeholders from various departments within the hospital foundation. These sessions served as forums for stakeholders to articulate their perspectives, highlighting aspects they appreciated, areas of dissatisfaction, and suggestions for improvement. Moreover, they provided invaluable input for proposing enhancements in real-time, ensuring that proposed solutions resonated with the diverse needs and aspirations of the hospital foundation’s stakeholders, including clinicians, researchers, administrative staff, and development officers.

The crux of the challenge lay in transitioning from a landscape dominated by custom solutions to one that harnesses the native capabilities of Salesforce. This necessitated not only technical refinements but also cultural shifts and process optimizations. By embracing this challenge head-on, the hospital foundation aimed to redefine their data architecture, streamline operational processes, and maximize the utilization of native Salesforce functionalities to meet their day-to-day operational needs, ultimately supporting their mission to improve children’s health and well-being.

Leveraging insights gathered from discovery sessions, Redpath delivered a comprehensive Findings and Recommendations presentation. This presentation delineated actionable recommendations categorized by object or department, providing the hospital foundation with a roadmap for project support and continuous improvement.

The outcome of this exercise was a curated list comprising over 100 items encompassing additions, modifications, and organizational health-related enhancements. These recommendations were reviewed and prioritized by the hospital foundation team, laying the foundation for subsequent implementation efforts.

A key aspect of the solution involved leveraging native Salesforce functionalities, such as the Payments and Scheduling feature within the Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP), to streamline processes and eliminate reliance on custom objects. By introducing the hospital foundation to NPSP’s capabilities, Redpath facilitated the deprecation of a custom object used for tracking future payments and installments on pledges. Additionally, custom enhancements, including a dedicated button on the Account Interface, were implemented to simplify the entry of pledged gifts and associated details, enhancing operational efficiency for the Gift Administration team.

The Gift Administration team’s workflow was further optimized through collaborative efforts to refine the NPSP Gift Entry process. Redpath worked closely with the team to declutter the Batch Template, removing unused fields, and enriching user experience by providing additional donor information.

Recognizing the significance of corporate funding pursuits, Redpath introduced the utilization of Grants Record Type and Deliverables object, tailored to the needs of the team responsible for securing corporate sponsorships. This strategic enhancement enabled the hospital foundation to effectively track and manage corporate funding initiatives, fostering greater accountability and transparency.

Addressing the challenges surrounding Account Teams and member tracking, Redpath devised a streamlined solution tailored to the hospital foundation’s requirements. By implementing a screen flow accessible to the Prospect Development Team, updates to Account Teams and related accounts were simplified, leveraging the Parent Hierarchy field for enhanced data management. Furthermore, automated email alerts were configured to notify Gift Officers of assignment updates, ensuring timely and effective communication.

The collaborative partnership between the hospital foundation and Redpath has driven both technical excellence and capacity enhancement within the hospital foundation’s organizational framework. These results are particularly impactful in the context of the hospital’s mission to provide outstanding medical care, conduct groundbreaking research, and offer comprehensive support to children and their families.

Through iterative discovery sessions and business analysis, the comprehensive list of recommendations generated during the Path to Success initiative continues to serve as a guiding compass for continuous improvement. With each prioritized item addressed, the hospital foundation moves closer to realizing its vision of a streamlined, optimized Salesforce ecosystem. Redpath’s strategic guidance and technical expertise have empowered the hospital foundation to navigate complex challenges effectively, ensuring that solutions are tailored to their unique needs and objectives.

There were several outcomes of this collaborative effort including:

• Technical Refinement: By transitioning away from custom solutions towards leveraging native Salesforce functionalities, the hospital foundation has witnessed a significant enhancement in system efficiency and data integrity. The reduction of custom objects and the adoption of NPSP features have simplified processes, reduced maintenance overheads, and enhanced user experience across various departments. This improvement directly supports the hospital foundation’s ability to manage donor relationships more effectively, ensuring sustained funding for critical healthcare services and research initiatives.
• Operational Efficiency: Streamlining processes such as gift entry, grant management, and account team tracking has resulted in notable improvements in operational efficiency. Redpath’s expertise in optimizing workflow processes and decluttering interfaces has empowered the hospital foundation’s teams to accomplish tasks more swiftly and accurately. This efficiency frees up valuable time and resources, allowing healthcare professionals and administrative staff to focus more on patient care, research, and community engagement.
• Capacity Augmentation: Redpath’s collaboration with the hospital foundation extends beyond technical assistance; it serves to augment the hospital foundation’s existing team’s capabilities. By providing supplemental support and expertise, Redpath enables the hospital foundation to tackle complex challenges with confidence. This partnership leverages a blend of internal expertise and external insights to drive continuous improvement and innovation, ultimately enhancing the hospital foundation’s capacity to deliver high-quality care and support to children and their families.

As the partnership between the hospital foundation and Redpath continues to evolve, they continue to be on the forefront of innovation. With a commitment to ongoing refinement and optimization, the hospital foundation is well-positioned to harness the full potential of Salesforce as a strategic enabler of their mission and organizational growth, ensuring that the hospital foundation can continue to make a profound impact on the lives of children and their families.