Arts and Science Council eCampaign System
The Arts and Science Council (ASC) enlisted the help of NPower Charlotte Region to rewrite its eCampaign fundraising system. The ASC needed a system that would allow companies to solicit their employees for personal financial pledges and gifts that would support the arts and cultural community.
Challenge
The Arts and Science Council (ASC) enlisted the help of NPower Charlotte Region to rewrite its eCampaign fundraising system. The ASC needed a system that would allow companies to solicit their employees for personal financial pledges and gifts that would support the arts and cultural community. Company leaders would send an email to fellow employees to encourage them to visit a web-based system where they could log their pledge. The envisioned system needed to support yearly customizations of messaging, colors, fonts, images and video media. In addition, the ASC desired a system that enabled reductions in staff administration, data entry workload and financial errors.
Solution
After a careful review of existing 3rd-party technology platforms, NPower Charlotte Region selected the Microsoft .Net family of technologies to build the eCampaign system for the ASC. Products employed include Visual Studio .Net, SQL Server, Windows 2003 Server, SQL Server Reporting Services, Visio Pro 2003, Microsoft Office 2003 and Microsoft Project 2003.
Impact
The eCampaign system has exceeded the expectations of everyone over the two years it has been in operation. Over $2.5 Million has been raised for the cultural community from a variety of pledge payment methods including credit cards, payroll deductions, stock transfers and cash/check donations. Donor information is exchanged between the eCampaign system, accounting and donor management systems, greatly reducing paper-based and manual data entry tasks. Over 90 companies and 4500 donors participated in making pledges online last year which represents two years straight of 100%+ growth in system usage.
The Microsoft platform of technologies provided robust enterprise capabilities for the system and enabled all project management and communication aspects in NPower's collaboration with the ASC to make the system a huge success!
About the Nonprofit
The Arts & Science Council (ASC) is a non-profit organization that serves and supports Charlotte-Mecklenburg's cultural community through grant-making, planning, programs and services to ensure a vibrant community enriched with arts, science and history.
Organized in 1958, ASC combines resources from the Annual Fund Drive, allocations from local, state and federal governments, and its endowment to support cultural organizations, educational programs and individual artists throughout the region.
ASC also provides cultural support through the Cultural Project Grant program, helping to fund neighborhood and community-based projects involving arts, science, history or heritage.
