“We had virtually no online presence and no way to provide the public with an ongoing stream of information about our plans and activities. I tell every nonprofit leader I meet that if they don’t look into Arreva, they’re doing their organization a disservice.”

 

Tim Albury
Davie PAL

The Mission of the Police Athletic League of Davie Inc. (Davie PAL) is to enhance the relationship between the Town of Davie Police Department, and the youth of the community; through positive interactions and mentoring. The focus is to prevent juvenile delinquency through the use of academics, athletics, and artistic activities. Davie PAL's primary focus is to help the youth of the Town of Davie to improve their academic achievements, increase their leadership and decision making skills; avoid pregnancy, drugs, and alcohol use; and enable them to make healthy choices for their future success.

THE CHALLENGE

When Police Officer Tim Albury joined the Police Athletic League of Davie as executive director in 2011, the Florida nonprofit was in a shambles. The organization had less than six months of operating income in its coffers and was in danger of losing its nonprofit status with the IRS due to an overdue tax bill of more than $40,000. Its aging sports facility hadn’t been maintained and new sports equipment hadn’t been purchased in years. The prospects for making up the financial shortfall were dim, since the nonprofit had virtually no online presence, no fundraising or communications infrastructure and only a partial, paper-based list of its donors, members and volunteers.

Albury began by developing a list of strategic goals for his first 6 months at the helm. His priorities included crafting a realistic operating budget and implementing tight financial controls. He resolved to increase the facility rental fees and invest the proceeds in repairs and new equipment. And, perhaps most importantly, he would reach out to the community to win new members and donors.

Albury realized he’d need a communication and fundraising infrastructure capable of engaging the Davie community if he hoped to regain the support the organization had enjoyed in years past.

“We had virtually no online presence and no way to provide the public with an ongoing stream of information about our programs, plans and activities,” he says now. “We lacked the capacity to collect and organize information about the parents, kids, volunteers and supporters we work with every day. We also had no means of soliciting donations or planning special events. We knew these capabilities were essential, so we conducted a detailed evaluation of all of the leading online fundraising and event management applications. In the end, we concluded that Arreva was by far the most capable software platform out there."

Arreva's first assignment was to build an “intelligent Website” for PAL Davie that incorporated the company’s suite of applications for online fundraising, website content management, email marketing, social networking, peer-to-peer fundraising, event management, volunteer management and donor tracking. PAL Davie’s new “powered by Arreva” Website was up and running within ten business days. The staff now had a robust collection of tools for updating the site, informing stakeholders about its after-school programs and launching online fundraising campaigns.

THE SOLUTION

With the infrastructure in place, Albury and his team started planning the nonprofit’s first-ever fundraising event, “Comedy Night.” The contacts from the paper lists were consolidated in Arreva's donor tracking database. Now, the Pal Davie event team copied and pasted text and graphics to create an event sub-site that provided the event details and incorporated Arreva's capabilities for automated ticketing, reservations and reporting. Next, Albury and his team promoted the event using Arreva's email marketing application and built-in features for implementing peer-to-peer “tell- a-friend” campaigns.

The event was a success, meeting its fundraising goals handily and generating fresh interest in PAL Davie throughout its Florida community. Since then, “Comedy Night” has spawned a series of successful annual events, including a Spaghetti Dinner fundraiser, a 5K Family run/walk and more.

Now, three years later, the organization’s turnaround is complete. PAL Davie has a realistic and fully-funded budget as well as a growing reserve fund for emergencies. Its membership has increased tenfold to more than 500 kids and participation in PAL Davie’s summer camp has expanded from 20 to 95 kids per week. The equipment and facilities have been upgraded and rental fees have soared from $800 to over $4,000 a month. Community engagement has also skyrocketed, with more than 5,000 constituents added to Arreva CRM tracking system, which captures all Website transactions automatically. “We’re extremely happy with Arreva and the capabilities it provided for us to serve our Florida community,” says Albury.