Smooth and transparent processes are essential not only for companies, but also for other institutions, such as socio-political and environmental organizations, in order to achieve milestones more efficiently - and, especially in the case of NGOs, to accelerate positive changes in the world.
In this blog post, we shed light on our project with the non-profit organization Aktionsgemeinschaft Artenschutz e.V.
We explain step by step how we enabled the team with tools and know-how to organize internal processes, to enhance communication with interested parties and donors as well as how to set up their internal data management in a way that allows the organization to focus even better on their actual vision: to protect and preserve endangered animal and plant species as well as their habitats.
With our Pro Bono initiative, we support non-governmental organizations within a defined project with technical tools, individual solutions and our many years of IT knowledge. Our offer is completely free of charge, so that financial resources can be used entirely for the NGO's purpose. More information and the registration form can be found here.
The Aktionsgemeinschaft Artenschutz e.V. (AGA) has been committed to the preservation of endangered animal and plant species and their habitats for over 30 years. With its project work, the Aktionsgemeinschaft Artenschutz also carries out valuable educational work and has set itself the goal of strengthening environmental awareness in order to prevent further destruction of humans’, animals’ and plants’ livelihood.
Excel documents were very well structured and neatly maintained, which makes the Microsoft Office tool a valuable solution in general. However, with a certain amount of data, Excel reaches its limits in most cases, especially, when it comes to clarity.
So, the request of the Aktionsgemeinschaft Artenschutz e.V. was: a solution that is still well-structured, but comes with a more modern and elegant design that is fun to work with.
On this basis, our project team chose the Atlassian tool Confluence. Our colleagues set up a so-called company wiki and helped migrate the data from Excel to Confluence. Internal administrative processes and important data are now stored in this new environment.
Our colleagues saw further potential to simplify the processes of the non-governmental organization. Here, the Atlassian tools Jira and Jira Service Management came into play – two of the most important solutions for modern, transparent task and ticket management.
Prior to the start of our collaboration, the team of Aktionsgemeinschaft Artenschutz e.V. had worked on the basis of emails and the chat program Slack. As a result, tasks, workflows, deadlines and information were sometimes delayed or not processed at all, especially when people were sick or had left the organization.
With Jira, the non-governmental organization now has a central platform that maps all daily tasks and allows employees to assign specific to-dos and then work on them within a defined time window. The team can also discuss individual tasks directly via the tool's comment function, which makes the entire communication more efficient and, above all, traceable for others.
The Jira Service Management solution even solved two requirements. Firstly, the AGA team can use the platform to communicate more easily with its donors and respond more quickly to inquiries. Secondly, the tool is also used internally: colleagues and volunteers can easily request materials they need for their work via Jira Service Management.
Miriam Seiter from Aktionsgemeinschaft Artenschutz e.V. summarizes: "When we received an invitation to DEMICON's Pro Bono Program, we knew that this was just the right thing for us. Over the past few months, the friendly and creative team helped us build an AGA wiki in Confluence free of charge, where we can collect and reference all our internal processes, instructions, info and templates. Jira will also help us organize our workflows, deadlines and tasks much better in the future.”
She continues: “Furthermore, thanks to the programs, we can now also involve volunteers in our work better and faster. From the bottom of my heart, a big thank you to DEMICON for the great introduction to the Atlassian products Confluence and Jira."
In just 5 working days, our DEMICON team introduced three new tools at the Aktionsgemeinschaft Artenschutz e.V., assisted with the migration of data and thus helped the team to create an optimal basis for their success in the future.
Do you work in an NGO yourself and see a need for improvement in your systems and processes, or know of an organization that could benefit from the Pro Bono Program? Feel free to contact us.
Download now our Success Story about the Aktionsgemeinschaft Artenschutz!