San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance
Fundraising Technology Roadmap
The Alliance is an international, nonprofit conservation organization committed to saving species worldwide by uniting expertise in animal care and conservation science with a dedication to inspiring passion for nature.
Highlights
- The Alliance wanted to improve its use of technology to centralize data management, manage duplicate data, improve ticketing, and automate processes to enhance its fundraising, marketing, and overall operations.
- Heller experts worked with San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance to assess their organizational challenges and technology systems, develop a vision for the future state of their technology, and create a clear action plan to reach their goals.
- The Alliance now has a clear technology vision, a roadmap for how to move forward, and organizational buy-in for digital transformation.
Challenge: System configuration creating data quality issues
The Alliance had an on-premises system that lacked configuration, resulting in serious issues with data management, accuracy, and reporting, outdated ticketing, as well as decentralized data governance across departments and a looming vendor support sunset. The org wanted to gain a 360˚ insight into their supporters, improve and integrate fundraising and membership processes and data management, and establish automations and workflows within a modern technology stack.
Solution: A strategic tech assessment and implementation plan
Heller Consulting led the Alliance through a strategic assessment, delivering a technology plan designed to confidently reach their future state goals. We conducted discovery interviews to delve into the daily operations of the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance team and the broader organizational goals and strategies. Our expertise guided these conversations, ensuring a thorough understanding of both the current and aspirational workings of the organization.
Our review of existing systems highlighted the purpose of each tool and how staff used them in their roles. We identified what was functioning well, pinpointed areas of inefficiency, and diagnosed potential issues as the organization scaled its operations.
Through a detailed system analysis, we assessed specific platforms and solutions that aligned with San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’s goals. By comparing the organization's desired future state with its current state, we identified gaps in infrastructure, staff capacity, and business processes. This analysis enabled us to outline key improvement opportunities and recommend the most suitable solutions.
Our recommendations encompassed a holistic view of technology, business processes, and people, ensuring a comprehensive approach to change.
The Result: Confidence in tech strategy and a blueprint for the future
The roadmap provided a practical, actionable plan for achieving the desired end state, complete with detailed sequences of activities, phases, associated costs, timeframes, expected improvements, impacts, and change management considerations.
The Alliance now possesses a comprehensive roadmap for its technological future, featuring modern solutions and tools that enhance fundraising, marketing, ticketing, and operations—enabling their team to focus on the most important thing: the mission.
