The Prostate Cancer Charity

The largest and most comprehensive of the charities focused specifically on prostate cancer

Test tubes

Company Overview

Prostate cancer was for so long a neglected health issue - neither understood by the public nor prioritised by politicians. By any dimension, prostate cancer simply didn’t register on the radar screen.

It was against this background that the Prostate Cancer Charity was set up in 1996. In its relatively short life, the Charity has played a key role in raising both public awareness of the disease and political debate about services and support... and there is now a real sense that for the cause of prostate cancer, the time has come.

The Prostate Cancer Charity is the largest and most comprehensive of the charities focused specifically on prostate cancer.The organisation aims to provide hope for tomorrow through the research that it funds - and practical support for today through its extensive - and growing - information services.

Over recent years The Prostate Cancer Charity has invested over £7 million in vital medical research and supported thousands of men and their families.The contact with so many people whose lives have been directly affected by prostate cancer, feeds into all that the Charity does, giving it a real breadth of knowledge to underpin its work.

The Prostate Cancer Charity’s vision is to achieve for men, in relation to prostate cancer, what has so successfully been achieved for women and breast cancer.The Prostate Cancer Charity has four core objectives - providing support and information, funding research and campaigning - and the charity engages in the necessary fundraising activities to support these aims, throughout the UK.The Charity works with health professionals who care for men with prostate cancer around the UK.

The Challenge

The Prostate Cancer Charity was experiencing rapid growth and was on track to achieve its ambitious growth plan of a turnover of £8m by 2010.

Liz Ambekar, the Director of Finance, knew that they would need to heavily invest in IT and implement a new finance system, as well as recruit extra staff to create the infrastructure required to support the organisation’s ambitious growth plans.

The Sage system that was already in place quite simply did not provide the level of functionality that would be needed.

The Selection Process

Liz formed a ‘selection committee’ which included members of both the Finance and IT departments, a budget manager and the Charity’s Treasurer. In the first instance, the representatives from IT produced a thorough technical specification and tender documentation was produced.The tender process took approximately 6 months.

A go-live date was set for April 2007, to ensure the new system would be up and running for the new financial year. The Group initially considered a number of solutions, but eventually shortlisted three systems: Sun, Access Dimensions and the latest version of Sage. Functionality was absolutely key and after careful consideration the Group unanimously chose the Access Dimensions solution.

Liz commented,“There were two main factors that convinced us to implement Access Dimensions. Firstly, cost.The Group felt we were getting more functionality for our money with the Access solution. Secondly, everyone loved the look and feel of Dimensions. It was much more user-friendly than Sun or Sage”.

The Solution

The Prostate Cancer Charity was extremely impressed with the functionality of the Office Integration module and this was particularly important in the decision to choose Access Dimensions.

Integration with Raisers Edge was also essential; the Access Specialist Centre allocated to the Prostate Cancer Charity could provide evidence of a track record in seamlessly integrating the Access solution with Raisers Edge in a number of other charities.

Reporting was a major issue, Dimensions provided the organisation with better quality, more in-depth, accurate management and budget facilities.

This resulted in far better analysis, enabling the Charity to drill down further than its previous system allowed. Dimensions enabled the Charity to cut the data into seven different categories, and analyse and look at the data in many different ways.

At month end the system now allows the Prostate Cancer Charity to run four essential reports (based on accurate, real-time data) that can be drilled down and analysed so that each member of staff can obtain the information needed to make more informed business decisions.

The initial feedback from users is that they found the system easy to use, which meant that staff did not have to embark on extensive training courses. Liz commented, “I am extremely impressed with the Dimensions solution and have spoken to many charity organisations that are considering implementing Dimensions.

I am more than happy to share my experience and reassure them that their investment will be worthwhile”.

The Future

Liz and her team are looking to further expand their Dimensions solution. Budget Management is critical to the Charity. Liz explained,“I want to empower the Managers in the organisation to enable them to manage their own budget easily.

In order to do this I need to be able to give each Manager access to the information they need, quickly and efficiently.Access Executive Desktop will help us achieve this, as it will provide the required information on each Managers’ desktop to allow them to drill down to whatever level of detail that they require.”

Liz also wants to implement several of the modules available within the Access web-enabled suite, Dimensions Portal. This functionality will enable other remote users to access information online, which will save on costly postal services.

Liz explains Dimensions Portal will help us communicate information electronically to our office in Scotland. Instead of filling out forms and posting them, our users will be able to complete expenses forms and purchase orders via the web, as well as to be able to approve invoices on-line.

“My goal is to change all that we are presently doing manually and generate everything electronically, it’s a big change and I will need to get buy-in from my other staff members, but I think it is essential and will enable us to further improve our processes”.