Simon Youth Foundation

Blackbaud Hosting Solutions Gives Simon Youth Foundation Peace of Mind

The mission of Simon Youth Foundation (SYF) is to foster and improve educational opportunities, career development, and life skills that transform the lives of at-risk youth through focused programs and initiatives with public school and post-secondary education partners. SYF partners with public school districts to serve 25 alternative schools called Education Resource Centers (ERCs) in 12 states across the country that have a 90 percent cumulative graduation rate. ERCs have enabled 7,000 students to obtain their high school diplomas.

The Challenge:

• The Simon Youth Foundation shares a computer network with Simon Property Group and could not easily add new software to the system.
• The Foundation was using the accounting system used by the Simon Property Group, and it did not meet the needs of a nonprofit organization.
• Additionally, the time required reconciling the books between the Foundation and the property group was time-consuming and limited the Foundation’s ability to run reports.
• The Foundation could not conveniently get the statistics it needed or run reports in an efficient manner using Microsoft Excel®.

The Solution:

• The Foundation needed its constituent database and financial application to be an integrated system, so it selected Blackbaud’s The Raiser’s Edge® as its constituent database and Blackbaud’s The Financial Edge™ as its accounting system.
• After conducting an analysis of client/server software costs, including the addition of an IT person to be responsible for the new software and hardware, the Foundation determined that Blackbaud’s hosting solution, Blackbaud OnDemand, was the best option.
• With the Blackbaud OnDemand Services, the Foundation has a secure system to maintain its data and get remote access to the applications via a Web browser.

The Results:

• The Foundation has been able to save a significant amount of time, at least two weeks a year, using The Raiser’s Edge/The Financial Edge hosted solutions.
• With Blackbaud OnDemand, Foundation employees are able to work remotely, increasing productivity and lessening the environmental impact of commuting.
• It used to take the Foundation an entire day to go through transactions and input donations gathered from Simon malls across the country; now it only takes 30 minutes.
• Finally, the Foundation has been able to gather more accurate data because information such as pledges is entered online, significantly reducing the risk of human error.