Sheltering Arms
Sheltering Arms
Sheltering Arms serves up to 3,500 children and their families each year by offering learning opportunities to kids as young as six weeks old. On average, children attending Sheltering Arms score in the 90th percentile for language and literacy, exceeding developmental milestones for kindergarten readiness. Sheltering Arms also provides proactive support for families—from GED courses to job searching to housing assistance.
Founded in 1888, by a sewing circle of Atlanta women who saw a need for childcare for mothers who worked long hours in cotton mills, Sheltering Arms began serving out its mission in an old railroad box car, which served as the first center. Today, Sheltering Arms has 13 centers across Atlanta that provide high‐quality early education, child care, and comprehensive family support services.
“We had a challenging time transitioning from the local versions of Raiser’s Edge 7 and Financial Edge 7 to RE NXT and FE NXT. We needed help getting our new system up and running with confidence. There were things that just weren’t connecting and we wanted an expert to tell us what was working and what wasn’t—and make recommendations based on our unique needs and goals.”
Alexis Torres
Director of Development, Sheltering Arms
System Inconsistencies
In 2022, Sheltering Arms transitioned from the on-premise version of Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge 7 and Blackbaud Financial Edge 7 to the cloud-based RE NXT and FE NXT. Shortly after the migration, new team members took over the Director of Development and Development Operations Manager roles. The new team faced two immediate challenges: data inconsistencies in the new RE NXT solution and the loss of historical knowledge due to the staff changes.
Realizing the data in the new system wasn’t entirely accurate or accessible, and some connections were lacking—bank accounts weren’t properly linked, and posting gifts to Financial Edge NXT didn’t work—the new team began manually entering data in order to ensure its accuracy. The timing coincided with their big annual in-person fundraising event, which created additional admin work. Ultimately, the time-consuming manual work halted additional fundraising efforts.
“NPact really worked with us to make things happen. They were like a bonus member of our team. Their support has touched everyone from development to the finance team. It’s made us more efficient and reduced manual work. We can be more responsive to donors by communicating to them more about things they want to know about. I expect to see a growth in our fundraising as a result.”
Alexis Torres
Director of Development, Sheltering Arms
Best Practice Solutions
NPact began by performing an audit of the Raiser’s Edge NXT database, then developed solutions based on best practices and the unique needs and goals of Sheltering Arms. Updates included fixing bank account links, cleaning up stagnant data, reconciling outstanding pledges by connecting payments to pledges, setting up events and campaign funds, creating consistent address lines, and improving reporting processes.
The updates, which were part of several new SOPs created by NPact, helped to break down organizational silos—saving communication headaches between data and teams. They’ve also been able to provide their President with custom views to track the status of key information like this year’s large fundraising event. With new confidence in their system, Sheltering Arms has extended their contract with NPact to leverage more features in Raiser’s Edge NXT—like management of opportunities for corporate donations and foundations—and enhancing their processes in Financial Edge NXT.
Our deeply experienced team of professional consultants will provide you with powerful tools and know-hows to drive philanthropy in your community. There is no project too big or too small, and work can be performed on-site or remotely. Start the conversation today with our team.