Tearfund NZ

Modernising Tearfund's website for flexibility and efficiency.

Client Profile

Tearfund New Zealand, a Christian non-profit organisation, and its 40+ staff: Raise $14 million from 15,000 donors and child sponsors annually. Their work also covers modern slavery prevention, disaster response and recovery in times of crisis. Working with local partners to help find peace and safety for people affected by conflict, and helping farmers and entrepreneurs create sustainable incomes.

Challenges

Tearfund had been running their website on an inflexible, slow platform that was costly, and time-intensive to develop and maintain. On top of this, the systems' integration between the website and CRM were time-consuming, slow manual admin tasks. We needed to build a new website, to their designs and new branding, on time and on budget to ensure donation continuity.

Results

To solve this challenge, XP provided a custom digital solution which provided:

  • Modern, rebranded website
  • Opensource, flexible DNN platform
  • Simple, quick DIY development
  • Digitise and automate all admin

Using technology to help end poverty

Tearfund New Zealand hopes to encourage people to put their faith in action, and for the past 10 years, their website has been a critical part of their strategy to help end poverty.

Tearfund’s website has to be visually appealing, easy to use and incredibly functional. That’s because every year, about $14 million from 15,000 donors and child sponsors flows directly from the charity’s website to support its projects.

“Our website is so much more than a website – it’s a fully integrated tool we use to run our entire organisation,” says Tammy Frazer, business technology solutions, Tearfund. “Tearfund staff, our donors, child sponsors, partners and volunteers all depend on it.”

In 2022, after a major rebrand, Tearfund asked Xtreme Productivity, their long-term digital solutions service partner, to modernise the site. The modernisation would include the new look, which Tearfund themselves provided, updated technology and a simple, DIY approach to development.

  • $14

    MILLION

    Income received through the website on an annual basis

  • 15

    THOUSAND

    The number of supporters giving through the platform for appeal, sponsorships and more

  • 8

    MONTHS

    The number of months it took XP to launch the new site from project kick-off

“The new website went live in four months because XP knows Tearfund and charities like the back of their hand. It would have taken years if we’d had to educate and train a new provider.”

Tammy Frazer, Tearfund.

All encompassing modernisation

XP incorporated Tearfund’s new brand and immediately recommended a shift to a DNN content management system and modern cloud infrastructure from the Kentico CMS. Pairing the DNN CMS with cloud architecture makes it easy to integrate with Dynamics CRM, payment gateways and other external systems.

The modular DNN CMS is also far more flexible than Tearfund’s previous content management system. XP built modules that Tearfund employees with no development experience can use to change and update each page which reduces the need for skilled developers. DNN can create almost anything the UX designers can dream up while staying in the CMS platform’s framework.

As an added bonus, DNN doesn’t charge a licensing fee which frees up funds to better support people in need.

DIY Development with modules

Tearfund’s employees now use the modules to create new webpages and update existing pages. Tammy and her colleagues know the look and feel won’t change when they drag and drop new content and images into the modules thanks to the reusable coding.

“I’d never built a webpage in my life, and thanks to XP, I’ve now built lots of them,” says Tammy. “DIY is faster and easier than we thought possible with the modules.”

Tearfund's new website homepage

Using technology to help end poverty

TFNZ’s website and Dynamics CRM handle all of the donations, child sponsor signups and more.

For more than decade, XP has worked with Tearfund to automate 90% of the day-to-day financial transactions and administrative processes.

Online donations are secure, simple and traceable. Tearfund can see what went wrong, when and where, if a donation doesn’t appear in their bank account. It’s the best way to track every single donation and financial transaction making it safer for their donors, too.

“We look at our CRM daily and have the ability to reconcile the CRM with the bank in real time,” says Tammy.

Every year, Tearfund’s 8,900 child sponsors support children with up to 300+ new sponsors signing up every year. Tearfund’s CRM handles the logistics such as the children’s photos and profiles.

A few years ago, Tearfund asked XP to digitise child-sponsor letters and messaging. They had needed the equivalent of a full-time employee to manually process and mail the 30,000 sponsor letters they receive every year. That employee now spends just 10% of their time on the letters and the turnaround is minutes not weeks.

And since Tearfund and XP digitised and automated the tax receipts sent to donors and child sponsors, their supporters get their tax receipts 75% faster.

XP: Critical to Tearfund's plan

TFNZ’s website will always be a crucial component in TFNZ’s strategy to help end poverty because it’s the tool employees rely on for daily operations. With XP, TFNZ knows its website provides the seamless user experience its 15,000 donors and child sponsors expect and deserve. Meanwhile, the CRM that XP has continuously improved delivers the financial transparency and traceability that proves TFNZ is accountable, well-run and meets its legal obligations under the Charities Act 2005. TFNZ’s partnership with XP started when TFNZ’s original developer ignored their calls after a “huge fail” with its CRM and donation capabilities. TFNZ called XP, and XP has been a part of TFNZ’s plan ever since.

“Back then, XP proved they will drop everything to get us back up and running — that’s why we’ve been together for a decade,” says Tammy.

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