Since 2000

Past Projects

 

Learn more about SFC’s projects

Modernizing Fundraising Systems & Reporting for a National Nonprofit

The Challenge: A 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization was running its fundraising operations on a cloud-hosted system that could no longer meet their security and performance requirements. They needed a partner who could not only fix the immediate problem, but also modernize how their Office of Advancement accessed and used data.

The Solution: SFC migrated the organization’s Ellucian Advance fundraising platform and Cognos reporting system from the cloud to the nonprofit’s own datacenter, taking full ownership of the transition. From there, SFC managed every aspect of hosting above the physical layer — upgrades, patching, security compliance, disaster recovery testing, performance tuning, and hardware sizing and replacement.

With a stable foundation in place, SFC led an evaluation of reporting solutions and implemented Tableau and SQL Reporting Services, giving the Office of Advancement modern, self-service reporting capabilities.

The Result:  A secure, high-performing, in-house hosting environment paired with modern reporting tools replacing a vendor relationship that couldn’t keep pace with the organization’s needs.

Building Enterprise Systems From the Ground Up for a Federal-Nonprofit Hybrid Organization

The Challenge: A hybrid organization (part U.S. federal government, part 501(c)(3) tax-exempt) had relied on GSA and NPS enterprise systems for years but needed to build its own internal capabilities to support rapid fundraising growth.

The Solution: SFC served as a long-term technology partner across dozens of projects over more than a decade, including:

  • Implementing the organization’s first enterprise financial system, PeopleSoft (2000)
  • Building a fundraising data warehouse that consolidated data from disparate systems, dramatically expanding data-driven decision-making
  • Leading implementation of the Amergent Portfolio fundraising system, CompSuite procurement system, Kronos timekeeping system, E2 travel system, and Tableau analytics
  • Standing up SSIS and Alteryx ETL pipelines, along with numerous smaller supporting systems

The Result: The data warehouse SFC built became mission-critical: fundraising staff ran over 16,000 reports from it every month, directly supporting a major campaign launch. Development revenue tripled between 2008 and 2011.

Scaling Data Analytics to Support Explosive Fundraising Growth

The Challenge: A 501(c)(3) nonprofit more than tripled its annual revenue over ten years but its reporting and analytics infrastructure hadn’t kept pace with that growth. The organization needed advanced tools to keep supporting fundraising operations at scale.

The Solution: SFC implemented a cloud-based Azure Data Warehouse built to handle the organization’s reporting and analytics needs, applying a proven, data-driven methodology throughout. This included:

  • Custom models to identify new mid-level and major donor prospects
  • Reporting tools to track performance in real time
  • Forecasting tools to support strategic decision-making
  • Ongoing quarterly consulting to dig deeper into analytics and adapt as needs evolved

The Result: A scalable analytics foundation that grows with the organization and a continuing consulting partnership that keeps their strategy sharp.

*Client names withheld to comply with confidentiality agreements. References available upon request.

 

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