Helping HeartKids stay in sync

HeartKids, like most charities and NFPs, is always seeking ways to be more efficient in delivering its core services. In this case: the high quality care and support HeartKids provides the families that need it most.

This drive for efficiency is understandable given 8 out of 100 babies are born in Australia each year with CHD. This sobering statistic has seen HeartKids grow quickly from a volunteer group of parents and individuals to the largest CHD charity in the country. This swift growth to become a truly national body underlined the charity’s need for better coordination and collaboration across regional and state offices, support staff, and fundraising and events teams.

The heart of the matter

HeartKids knew that to remain focused on what was important, and to mitigate their administrative growing pains, they needed a better system. They turned to Dropbox Business. We talked with Business Relationship Manager at HeartKids, Pam Collocott, to understand why and how Dropbox Business works for them.

Becoming truly national

Fundraising is obviously a major activity for HeartKids. These events, at any scale, require lots of planning, coordination and attention to the logistical details. And for HeartKids, as it has grown, so too has the scale and reach of their fundraising efforts. 

“As we typically have many people involved in events across different regions, we need to be working together as a team to get the best outcome,” Collocott explains. “Before Dropbox Business we had no linked systems or shared drive, making it much more difficult to coordinate our efforts. We were emailing files to each other and to our sponsors. This often resulted in overlapping or missed information creating delays and frustrations for all involved who were working on events or other marketing activities.”

Now with Dropbox, HeartKids’ fundraising efforts, and the files which support them, are centralised and benefit from national coordination. Team members know exactly where to go to stay abreast of each fundraising initiative.

“It’s vital that all of our event planning and marketing materials are stored centrally. Everyone, especially our design team, needs to be able to access the most up-to-date files and marketing materials,” Collocott explains.

“With Dropbox Business we can stay focused on being far more efficient as a team and in delivering holistic services that our charity provides. We’re not losing time trying to locate a file or find the latest version of a document; we’re just getting on with the job.” 

Staying in touch

With any charity, maintaining regular communication with stakeholders is vital. This requires keeping track of calls to and from current and prospective sponsors, event planners and follow-ups. In this light, Dropbox Business is a key support tool for HeartKids providing a centralised location for contact reports, client and sponsor notes for example. This means all staff, depending on their level of access and no matter where they are, can access this information as required.

This centralised resource, enabled by Dropbox Business, also operates as HeartKids’ central administrative platform. Any calls from families that need help are logged by the charity’s Family Support Coordinators into Dropbox.

“This means everyone in our support team has access to the most up-to-date client notes. Dropbox Business has become our central platform for almost everything we do, from basic filing right up to event planning,” Collocott said.

Day-to-day flexibility

Dropbox Business has not only streamlined and made more efficient the way HeartKids works, it has allowed greater flexibility across its operations. 

As Collocott explains, “HeartKids employees can work remotely while accessing the files they need. Many work from home a few days a week. With options to work more flexibly, Dropbox Business has made a big difference to our working culture.”

Find out how HeartKids and Dropbox are working together. Download the full case study here.