Church of the Open Door

Open Door was launching a new mentoring program called Next Generation for middle and high schools students, but lacked a way to administer and manage it in an efficient and cost-effective manner. The mentoring program consists of relationship-building and mentoring for 7th- 12th grade students, and includes scheduled weekly meetings between students and mentors that consist of learning opportunities at Open Door and serving within the community. Today, the mentoring program has grown to include approximately 185 students, 165 mentors and 85 mentor coordinators.

Due to the limited integration and tracking capabilities of their existing legacy database, the church was looking for a CRM solution that would manage the database; capture, track and monitor weekly interactions and activities with students, mentors and mentor coordinators; and help facilitate and track mentor program recruiting processes.

To address these needs, HCLTech implemented a customized, reliable hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM solution for Open Door.

Open Door also took advantage of the free value-add CRM PowerPack modules, including PowerSurvey, which is key component to their CRM and surveying capabilities for the mentor program. “Built right within CRM, the functionality of PowerSurvey has been an invaluable tool in capturing and managing feedback from students as well as mentors. With PowerSurvey, we can request and receive feedback quickly and easily from mentor program participants on a regular basis and monitor progress in real-time,” said Murphy.

“Microsoft Dynamics CRM meets our requirements very well. We have gained full integration of our all databases and streamlined many time-consuming processes associated with managing the mentor program. Now we can easily track meeting attendance as well as collect mentor survey data quickly and efficiently thanks to the powerful workflow that HCLTech built into the solution,” she added. Murphy mentioned that CRM has given them the functionality and productivity to run this type of program effectively, “Without CRM, we would be spending most of our time managing and organizing data, leaving little time to focus on helping the students, mentors and coordinators. With the added functionality that CRM brings to the table, we can focus on building relationships with the members of the program and less on administrative tasks,” she added.

One of the other key components of the Next Generation program is the recruiting process and CRM has also been a huge help in managing that for Open Door. For those interested in applying to the mentor program, the church offers an online application process which is managed through CRM. The church has live links on the Open Door website and when an applicant submits the application form, the data is automatically entered into CRM. “A big benefit of the solution is that we have streamlined and automated the mentor program application process and can track the progress of an applicant from start to finish, making sure nothing falls through the cracks,” said Murphy.

Murphy believes that without CRM, the church would not have such a successful and effective mentoring program. “We are really pleased with the adaptability of the solution and the possibilities CRM provides as we continue to grow and expand the program. It’s become an invaluable tool for us and we are grateful to the HCLTech team for helping to make that happen,” she added.