Midlands Air Ambulance Charity’s commitment to continually building strong relationships with its thousands of charity supporters and donors, who help fundraise millions of pounds each year, is being strengthened by a significant contribution from IT firm, Technology Management.

As the charity finds it increasingly hard to raise much-needed funds, investing in IT not only improves operational effectiveness by saving time and resources so money goes further, the charity can communicate better to the charity’s supportive donors as information stored on everyone involved is instantly available. This enables Midlands Air Ambulance Charity to easily adapt the information stored on the database to suit donors’ needs.

Technology Management’s generous software and service contribution, worth over £80,000 over three years, means Midlands Air Ambulance Charity now has a cloud-based Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solution to support and expand its fundraising activities. The solution will enable the charity to reduce its administrative time, continue to improve engagement with donors and charity supporters across the region, increase donations and ultimately save more lives.

Microsoft Dynamics 365/CRM will enable the charity to:

• More efficiently co-ordinate all fundraising meetings, phone calls, emails and other activity through Dynamics 365/CRM’s integration with Microsoft Outlook & SharePoint
• Streamline event management activities such as collection tins, merchandise sales and donation collection at fund-raising events
• Easily track & report on all donations
• Continue to improve communications with corporate sponsors, individual supporters and volunteers
• Execute more targeted, thus cost-effective marketing campaigns – including email campaigns, events & direct mail
• Reduce the admin involved in the management of gift aid claims, legacy & lottery registrations, online fundraising platforms and give-as-you- earn schemes

Angela Watkins of MAAC explains, “Our existing system was a combination of cumbersome, rigid software and Excel spread sheets. With the planned expansion in our fundraising activities, we recognised we needed a much more integrated and user-friendly solution.

“We also needed it to be flexible enough to be quickly tailored to our very specific requirements and work with our existing Microsoft Office tools such as Word, Excel & Outlook. Microsoft Dynamics CRM met all our needs and more. Without Technology Management’s generosity in providing a substantial contribution towards the software, hosting, implementation and training costs, it just wouldn’t be possible.

“We are so grateful for their commitment and incredible support and we now have a system that’s easy to use and saves a huge amount of time. It has been welcomed by all at Midland Air Ambulance Charity and means we can spend more time engaging directly with our extremely supportive donors, those that we really appreciate make our service possible. We value everyone involved and updating our IT is just one part of our on-going commitment to continually improving the fundraising experience for all.”

Midlands Air Ambulance Charity (MAAC) is the UK’s largest air ambulance service. With no government funding, it needs to raise a minimum of £6.5m per year to keep its three helicopters manned and operational.

Covering the counties of West Midlands, Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire, the charity performs over 2,000 missions a year, increasing a patient’s chances of recovery by ensuring they reach the most appropriate Trauma Centre within the critical first hour.

James Crowter, Managing Director at Technology Management, added: “We are delighted to be supporting Midlands Air Ambulance Charity, which saves so many lives in the region and be part of the charity’s IT improvement programme. Microsoft Dynamics CRM is such a flexible solution and we have worked with the team to ensure that the software meets their specific requirements. It is rewarding for us to see how our contribution has made such a difference to the Midlands Air Ambulance Charity.”