Why Cloud based systems are winning
Until 2011, a large Non profit organisation, which reaches out and rehabilitates under privileged people with disabilities, used to manage its operations using a desktop based software built on the back of MS Access. 6 computers were connected to each other over intranet and were used to capture data about its beneficiaries. Its programmes are spread widely across Karnataka and each programme would generate lots of data taking many different forms. Both the adoption of MS Access and the manner in which operations on it were managed created many problems.
Data collection was a bit unstructured and prone to errors. This made report generation an arduous task.
Repeatedly, the same information was collected from beneficiaries who would avail services from different sections of the organisation. This lead to a lot of duplication.
No history of services provided were available since data collection was limited only for beneficiaries. Adding new features to an existing desktop based application had its own complexities to be dealt with.
Backup of data was not available as there was no specific server to support this activity. Data loss was an event we had to contend with. And so on. . .
To address many of these gaps, this organisation adopted Goonjan in 2012 for information management - An integrated platform which non-profits can use to track their beneficiaries, provide services efficiently and manage donors among many other things. In simple terms - A database software for non-profits.
How adoption of Goonjan helped this organisation overcome numerous obstacles that deterred its growth
Flexibility:
Goonjan makes it possible for all stakeholders to access important data at the click of a button using the powerful search functions embedded in all parts of the application. It can be customised based on their unique system needs easily and provides different views of the data allowing them to control who can edit, add or delete data based on their roles.
Connected processes:
Goonjan ensured data was stored, manipulated and retrieved in a structured format and made it possible to track all processes (Tracking beneficiaries, Service delivery, Donor management Etc.) in a single application giving an integrated view of all the work done.
Data integrity:
Since it’s all on the cloud, chances of loss of data is virtually zero. Earlier, all stakeholders bore the responsibility to guard their data on their systems which is no longer the case now. They spend more time than before working to fulfil the core mission of their organisation.
Reports:
It used to take weeks to process data and generate insights from them in order to chart out a future course of action. With Goonjan, reporting became an effortless activity. For the management team, decision making became agile and well informed since time taken to generate reports was reduced to seconds from weeks.
Reliability:
It is a fully managed & supported solution giving them the reliability of a product coupled with flexibility to customise it. There are no complicated patches or upgrade procedures required (As with MS Access).
Impact in numbers
It has grown at a faster pace than ever before as evidenced below.
The no of duplicate records that used to be created has fallen by 70% since they moved from MS Access to Goonjan. With India moving towards making Aadhar an essential document, this organisation aims to completely eliminate duplication on the back of using Aadhar ID to authenticate beneficiaries uniquely.
Time taken to process data and generate reports has reduced from weeks to seconds.
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About Goonjan
Goonjan is a software for nonprofits designed to help NGOs fulfil the mission of their organisation. It is an integrated platform which you can use to track your beneficiaries, provide services efficiently and manage your donors among many other things. In simple terms - A database software for nonprofits. Since all of it is interconnected, extracting reports to study the impact of various stakeholders and report to concerned agencies becomes very easy and simple to do. It is open to integrate with other existing systems an NGO may be using and certain portions of the software can be customised to cater to the unique needs of an NGO.
