Integrated Microsoft Solutions for Not-for-Profit

Situation

As one of Australia’s largest not-for-profits, this organisation supports disadvantaged children through education initiatives and sponsorship funding. To deliver timely and secure support, document processing and volunteer onboarding must be sped up. However, reliance on in-office data entry, manual validation, and paper-based volunteer activation created significant delays, limiting their ability to scale their impact.

In-office data entry and inefficient volunteer activation process

This not-for-profit supports 30,000 families and 58,000 kids. They collect around 120,000 documents from these families each year, some of which come in electronically through their portal, but a lot come through the post or via emails. These documents capture the students' personal information, such as school reports, attendance, and personality questionnaires, which help this not-for-profit understand their education support needs.

All the 120,000 documents collected go through essential 3-level document checks to mitigate the exposure of children’s sensitive information and ensure that only the necessary data will be accessible to uncertified volunteers and sponsors. Validated documents are then uploaded to Dynamics CRM for further processing to facilitate payment for the children’s education needs. Unfortunately, their volunteers could only complete this step in their office locations.

The current setup and the sheer volume of documents they receive made processing incredibly challenging for this not-for-profit, especially when COVID-19 hit Australia. Data processing took 18 months, compared to the typical 2-3 months average completion time.

This not-for-profit’s manual volunteer activation process also further exacerbated their challenge. They needed a consistent pool of volunteers, but onboarding or offboarding 3,000+ volunteers a year is too much volume for their internal resources to support in the paper-based world. It was time-consuming, limited by their finite office space, inflexible to accommodate volunteers to return based on their availability, and challenging to ensure they only had limited access to sensitive data.

Solution

This not-for-profit tapped its long-time IT partner, Professional Advantage (PA), to develop a solution that enables secure and rapid processing of sensitive documents and real-time access control to onboard volunteers:

1. Document automation. Professional Advantage implemented a Microsoft 365 SharePoint-based portal as the foundation for automating document intake, validation, and storage.
   
   
2. Automated workflows. Using Azure Functions and Logic Apps, PA developed 21 workflows that automated the identification of whether a document is unique or duplicated and routed it to their specific libraries. These custom workflows connect SharePoint with Dynamics 365 via CRM APIs, automatically updating document status and generating direct links in CRM, streamlining verification and payment processing. They also purchased OCR scanners to scan incoming papers and upload them directly to SharePoint.
   
   
3. Automated volunteer onboarding and offboarding. PA automated the volunteer onboarding and offboarding process through a repeatable, custom-developed app using Microsoft Power Apps and Power Automate. Using only a volunteer’s personal email address, this not-for-profit now has a way to authenticate and conveniently provide access to their systems to thousands of volunteers as needed, without involving their IT team or the extra overhead costs.

Impact

Speeding up document processing to deliver educational and funding support.

This not-for-profit now has a SharePoint solution that manages digital and physical documents without any human intervention. The system removes guesswork by guiding teams through each step, highlighting exactly what actions must be taken next, without manual checking. This has nearly halved the cycle time for their document checking process.

The system guides where the document is in the life cycle, rather than providing hints, tips, and cheat sheets for their volunteers. Volunteers now interact with a clear, intuitive interface featuring self-explanatory actions like ‘Approve’ or ‘Decline’, significantly speeding up processing time.

The solution simplified the volunteer work process, reducing this not-for-profit’s support overhead. It also allowed secure online access to sensitive documents, opening more opportunities for volunteers to contribute to their cause. With shorter document processing cycle times, they can now focus more on facilitating the relationship and building the engagement between the student and the sponsor to encourage sponsors to continue with the program.

Providing secure volunteer access anywhere.

The Power Apps solution enabled secure volunteer onboarding and offboarding and can accommodate flexible volunteer time, without involving their IT resources. Previously, IT staff had to assign and revoke access permissions for each volunteer manually. The new app entirely automates this process, freeing IT resources and ensuring timely access.

If volunteers want to continue with this not-for-profit, they now have a system that allows that to happen. The solution opens the organisation up to a network of volunteers who can support them even when the workload grows.

Conclusion

Professional Advantage’s tailored Microsoft solution empowered this not-for-profit to scale its mission faster and more securely. With streamlined document processing and automated volunteer onboarding, the organisation can now respond more quickly to children’s educational needs, building stronger connections between students, families, and sponsors.