Oasis for Orphans
How Oasis For Orphans Saves Eight Hours Per Week Using Bloomerang
In southwest Kenya alone, there are an estimated 110,000 vulnerable children, many of them lacking opportunities for a better life. Today, Oasis for Orphans is providing for 331 of those children by focusing on their physical, spiritual, educational, and social development.
At Oasis, the team’s main priority is to provide the children with a place to belong. The organization’s supporters play a critical role in this as well. Their donors aren’t just numbers in a database or dollar signs in a spreadsheet; they’re members of the Oasis family who help foster that sense of belonging.
In order to support the children in their care, Oasis needs a donor management platform that will grow with their needs and dreams. When Laura Jacobs joined the team, she was tasked with sitting down with Bloomerang and honestly evaluating if the platform was right for them.
As the person who is responsible for caring for all of the donors, Laura’s vote of confidence in the platform would be critical. After seeing what she calls “an infinite amount of flexibility to build the system they need,” Laura realized “there’s no such thing as outgrowing Bloomerang. Bloomerang grows with us.”
In fact, she says, “Once I got to know Bloomerang, I was like, ‘We’re not going anywhere.’”
Integrations That Give The Team Peace Of Mind
Inside of Bloomerang, the biggest thing Laura operates in is Groups. She pulls reports and then “sticks” people in the right Groups. This feature is especially helpful because this gives Oasis the power to automatically nurture donors in each Group.
She also loves the Mailchimp integration. Once she adds someone to a Group, Mailchimp automatically starts an email flow with them. Laura loves that she can “really control their communication.”
“I’m not worried about my donors getting spammed all the time with too much email from Bloomerang or from Mailchimp or from anything,” she says. “We can really customize it, which is a big deal to us. Because if we’re a place you belong, nobody belongs to a place that spams them.”
Break Generational Poverty with Oasis For Orphans
DonateBloomerang + Oasis for Orphans
Laura was eager to talk about how Bloomerang’s features impact the amount of work Oasis is able to accomplish.
Save More Time
When asked how her time management would be different without Bloomerang, Laura says, “Oh, gosh, I don’t want to think about that. That’s a scary question.”
After working with our Bloomerang Support Specialists to build out the reports she needs, Laura estimates that she cut a day of work out of her job. She used to go line by line to figure out which donors had lapsed; now that everything is updated in Bloomerang, that report is automatically generated and she gets those eight hours per week back.
Raise More Funds
Bloomerang has also assisted Oasis as the organization has moved from a child-centric model of sponsorship to a donor-centric model. According to Laura, their donors used to have to fill out an application to become sponsors. Now it takes them as little as one click.
“People are always like, ‘Wait, I don’t have to sign on the dotted line for the rest of my life?’ I’m like, ‘No, just click here. It’s a simple thing.’”
They also save money by using Bloomerang.
“I don’t have to spend funds on people,” Laura says. “You’re just like one of our team. Me and Bloomerang are teammates every day, and you’re accomplishing what a whole other person would do.”
Do More Good
The crowdfunding feature is “a big one” for Oasis, as it offers them a way to raise more money and empower people to throw their own fundraisers.
A Daily Partner in Action
"Me and Bloomerang are teammates every day, and you’re accomplishing what a whole other person would do."
Laura Jacobs Community Relations Coordinator, Oasis for Orphans
Customer Support That Makes A Difference
She’s also especially fond of Bloomerang’s Care Team. One time, Laura says she “did a major bulk edit on things and changed stuff that should never have been changed.”
In her words: “It screwed up everything.”
“Your engineers went in and just undid it and wrote a personalized script to fix my error,” Laura says.
For any potential customer who is wondering if they should work with our Support Specialists, Laura encourages them to do it.
“Every time I talk to Bloomerang, I get the answers I’m looking for,” she says.
But that’s not all that she gets.
“The Support Specialists make me successful beyond Bloomerang. We’ve talked through best practices and donor management that have nothing to do with how I’m using Bloomerang. They’ve been a huge asset,” Laura says. “You will fall in love with them. They’re my best friends.”
Another thing Laura loves is that she doesn’t feel like she has to explain her job to Bloomerang’s team.
“It’s not like y’all are just computer geeks who are writing software. You’re involved in making a difference in the world and people have had experience doing that.”
Finally, Laura shares how her experience with Bloomerang’s Care Team has made her feel like they’re in this together.
“It’s like this whole sense of belonging, like Bloomerang’s part of us, we’re part of Bloomerang. We’re not your customer; we’re on a team together is how we always feel.”
Learn more about Oasis for Orphans. To schedule a demo with Bloomerang, click here.