Planned Parenthood Federation of America: Software Evaluation
PPFA needed to identify a preferred vendor to implement an online advocacy solution, one that allowed for e-communication and content management. The solution would support, and strengthen the Planned Parenthood Action Network, at both the national office and affiliate level. PPFA selected Beaconfire to evaluate advocacy software solutions and make a "best fit" recommendation based on their feature priorities.
The Challenge: PPFA had outgrown their custom advocacy solution. The solution in place was utilizing considerable amounts of staff time to maintain and administer. As PPFA's needs for their action center became more sophisticated, their current solution did not keep pace and the necessary enhancements were becoming costly for the organization. PPFA was also looking for a solution that served the needs of both the national and affiliate offices and would be fully capable of assisting Planned Parenthood in achieving the following main objectives.
- Grow and maintain a loyal, interactive community of activists.
- Recruit new activists by converting Web site visitors into participating activists.
- Reach activists quickly and generate immediate response from them.
- Keep activists engaged and ready to take action on important policy issues.
- Efficiently track results of advocacy campaigns to improve future campaigns.
The Solution: The Advocacy Product/Solution Assessment process focused first on developing an advocacy Features Inventory and highlighting those features and functions that were required or preferred by PPFA. Next, together with PPFA, Beaconfire formalized and prioritized the features, creating a scoring matrix that represented the programmatic needs of the Planned Parenthood Action Network. Beaconfire continued with a rapid assessment of available products and solutions in the context of PPFA's requirements.
Once the "best-fit" solution was identified, Beaconfire assisted in contract negotiations and the collection of information needed for PPFA to perform due diligence on the selected vendor. Beaconfire also created an implementation outline to assist PPFA during the solution rollout.