Foundation Fighting Blindness

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"The ability to customize the display and entry screens, and the flexibility provided by the custom fields, has really enhanced our ability to provide our executives with the information they need to track the progress and effectiveness of our fundraising efforts."

Michele Mercer
Director Database Operations

Superior Fundraising Supports Research and Outreach
Since its inception in 1971, The Foundation Fighting Blindness (FFB) has raised over $175 million for retinal degenerative disease research. The Foundation funds over 155 research studies at 55 prominent institutions, and leading-edge research in promising areas including genetics, gene therapy, retinal cell transplantation, retinal implants, and pharmaceutical and nutritional therapies.

The urgent mission of FFB is to find the causes, treatments, preventions, and cures for retinitis pigmentosa (RP), macular degeneration, Usher syndrome, and the entire spectrum of retinal degenerative diseases affecting over six million Americans. The Foundation also provides information for patients, families, and professionals.

FFB is consistently rated #1 among major charitable organizations for the percentage of revenue spent on research.* As a result, Worth Magazine’s December 2001 issue named FFB as one of the 100 Best Charities.

*Based on National Health Council findings

Growing with Millennium
Headquartered in Owings Mills, Maryland, with five branch offices located across the U.S., the organization has relied on Millennium in all departments since 1992. In the following eight years, the Foundation added over 200,000 constituents into its fundraising system. By fall 2000, several remote offices had been opened, and the organization decided to re-evaluate its fundraising system before upgrading.

Once again, FFB decided that Millennium was the best solution to support its development programs. For example, the comprehensive Events module helps to support the organization’s many events around the country, such as wine tastings and sponsored golf tournaments. The foundation is using the Events module to record important event information, including registrations received through the FFB web site.

Other factors that led the organization to choose Millennium include the ability to customize screens, add custom fields with a Windows interface, its extensive reporting capabilities, and the integration with other key software solutions used by the organization. The foundation is currently investigating the mobile handheld options components to arm its remote office personnel and other FFB executives who needs remote access to donor information and reports in Millennium.

Meeting Specialized Needs
The foundation needed programming to upgrade custom utilities, including a financial utility to create journal entries imported into Sage MIP Fund Accounting and update financial data in the general ledger. The organization also needed a custom module to convert the Medical Registry information from a separate database into the Millennium database for FFB researchers to use in clinical trials. All these specialized needs were delivered by the Sage Software support services staff to ensure the system was tailored to the FFB program needs.

The majority of the staff adjusted quickly to the improved system. The process was accelerated by the use of customized fields and screens, plus a customized training database that was combined with customized training workbooks and training sessions.

The results? "The ability to customize the display and entry screens, and the flexibility provided by the custom fields, has really enhanced our ability to provide our executives with the information they need to track the progress and effectiveness of our fundraising efforts," says Michele Mercer, director, database operations.

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