NetSquared teaming up with Sun Microsystems to produce global Hack Days. Sao Paolo, Brazil was a success on October 1, stay tuned for an update. Next up, China!
NetSquared is an initiative ofTechSoup
NetSquared enables social benefit organizations to leverage the tools of the social web.
- Home
- Big Brothers Big Sisters: Going to SCALE Using Agency Info Mgt System
Big Brothers Big Sisters: Going to SCALE Using Agency Info Mgt System
Voting Summary (Elevator Pitch):
AIM replaces a network of incompatible systems with a single, web-based system. This allows our 450 agencies to go-to-scale using a true work-flow system with powerful performance management capabilities.
Supporting organization:
Big Brothers Big Sisters of America
URL:
bigbrothersbigsisters.org
City:
Philadelphia
State/Region:
PA
Country:
USA
Give and Take: Describe your project's top three needs
Type of expertise needed:
Technical Expertise Business Intelligence and Data Warehouse design to augment AIM's workflow/transaction strengths. Need to leverage reporting/analysis capabilities.
Type of expertise needed:
Technical Expertise Single Sign-on: BBBS is stringing together best-of-breed services on the web and needs simple/powerful administration that can be done by non-techies at local agencies.
Project Vision Statement & Potential Social Impact:
Allow over 400 agencies, nation-wide, to "go to scale" by serving TEN TIMES the number of children served at the turn of the century (2000). The Big Brothers Big Sisters model has been objectively shown to have huge impact on the children served by the program and our vision is to bring this value to every child who can benefit from it. By focusing on schools, communities and targetted population (e.g. children of incarcerated parents), we aim to achieve "tipping points" and major societal impacts.
The system assures quality and safety by assuring that all enrollment steps are taken and that appropriate checks and balances are in place. All key milestones in the process are reviewed and/or approved by an additional person/level in the agency. Agency management are alerted to anomalies in real-time. Trends can be studies in major markets, regions or nationally.
Because it is web-based on non-proprietary, AIM can be easily integrated with similarly designed systems (e.g. staff and volunteers can access an online, natural language and constantly growing knowledge base)
Sustainability (financial) model:
All of the initial development, testing and ramp-up costs were underwritten entirely by contributions at the national level. This includes (at least) the 1st five years of enhancements uncovered while agencies are brought on-board. As agencies sign-up for AIM, they participate by paying an annual fee to cover shared, recurring costs (hosting, enterprise licenses, help-desk, etc.) The fee is based on brackets that reflect the agencies size (based on the number of children they are serving each year). Agencies are also responsible for costs related to the one-time costs of converting their legacy databases, although the national office maintains full-time staff to work with agencies during this transition.
Potential obstacles:
Normal resistance to change and resistance to standardization. So far, over 100 agencies have made the transition and there is general agreement that the pain of the transition is more than offset by the powerful capabilities of the new system.
Another obstacle is the challenges of growth: maintaining system availability and responsivenss with a NEW system while bringing agencies online as fast as possible. We have already survivied some "growing pains" and are now at a scale where we expect to "stay ahead of the curve".
A final obstacle is the time/energy needed to convert (one-time) over 400 different legacy databases.
Resource Needs:
Only one-third of agencies have been converted to AIM. Because the early conversions have been for larger, more established/sophisticated agencies, we are now moving to a stage where agencies will need more support during the conversion. Also, a steady stream of valuable enhancement requests are being submitted in order to help the product mature and to handle situations not anticipated during initial design. Finally, while the workflow and performance management portions of AIM are very strong, the ad hoc reporting capabilities are less developed and powerful. An effort to replace the existing reporting dashboard with a more powerful Data Warehouse and data-mining tools is planned
Key Milestones:
2002: Service Deliver MODEL documented and piloted at 15 agencies.
2003: AIM designed and prototyped
2004: AIM pilot testing at 4 agencies while all of the supporting infrastructure was developed and tested (data conversion tools/processes, online training, knowledge base, etc.)
2005: Rollout began. First 50 agencies converted
2006: Rollout continued, Second 50 agencies converted. Nearly 45% of all children served nationwide are served by agencies running AIM
2007: Rollout decelerated in order to focus on enhancing and maturing the product while deepening and exploring new uses at the agency level. Plan ~20 agencies in 2007 to be converted...including one with over 30 remote locations (and multiple systems). Phase 1.0 of the data warehouse effort is planned for 2007
2008: Continued (accelerated, if feasible) rollout and backlog of enhancement requests. Expand the tools available to the National Director of Safety Administration.
Project Summary:
Performance figures for agencies who have converted to AIM show that they are leading all other agencies in year-to-year growth, yield rates and improved quality. They are a valuable source of system, workflow and quality enhancement ideas and are our best ambassadors. This effort is at a transition state as we both must maintain momentum to move all desiring agencies to the sytem while maturing/deepeing the ways that it can be used to "go to scale". The addition of a "volunteers portal" at both national and local public website, along with improved CRM (constituent relation management) and CMS (content management systems) capabilities will further leverage AIM.
