# Samaritans turns to thankQ for CRM and fundraising solution

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2013/01/08/samaritans-turns-thankq-crm-and-fundraising-solution/
- Published: 2013-01-08T11:08:05+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

![thank Q logo](https://www.fundraising.co.uk/files/images/newswire/thankQ-logo-
access-strapline.png)

Samaritans provides confidential support for anyone struggling to cope, across the
UK and Ireland. Their volunteers are available round the clock, every single day
of the year. Samaritans has 201 branches, with more than 20,000 volunteers, offering
the service by phone, email, SMS, letter and face-to-face.

 

Samaritans’ central charity provides leadership and central support services to 
the 201 affiliated branches. The organisation is following [an ambitious strategy for growth and development](https://www.curriculosolutions.com/work-readiness-career-planning-kick-start)
which has already seen income increase by 36 per cent over the last two years following
a decision by the charity’s Board of Trustees, to invest in the central charity’s
fundraising capacity.

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As a result, Samaritans decided it was the right time to invest in [a new fundraising and CRM system](https://fundraising.co.uk/2017/01/16/top-10-crms-charities-nonprofits/)
to support their fundraising strategy. The primary business objectives in selecting
a new system were to simplify and streamline its current processes and to better
integrate with the existing infrastructure, especially its finance package. In addition,
the fundraising team wanted to be able to improve their reporting capability with
the ability to easily produce generic, custom and ad-hoc reports. During the selection
process, thankQ demonstrated a very close functional fit which would require very
little configuration to fulfil the fundraising team’s requirements and bring together
its disparate systems into a single integrated view.

 

The charity also placed a great deal of importance upon choosing a supplier with
the right cultural fit. Daniel McAllister, Interim Direct Marketing Manager at Samaritans
explained, “previous experience has taught us that the quality and culture of the
supplying organisation is as critical to a successful project as the quality of 
the software product itself. thankQ demonstrated a flexible attitude and a willingness
to work collaboratively with us to help clarify our needs, adapt our processes and
show us how thankQ can help us achieve our objectives.”

 

thankQ will handle all of the central charity’s CRM and fundraising activities, 
allowing Samaritans to improve its targeting and increase return on investment from
its fundraising programme. These improvements will also lead to a deeper understanding
of, and closer relationships with, its donors and stakeholders.

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