A major problem for not for profit voluntary groups is how to centralize their administration systems – no centralized email system or document storage, no centralized data base and no automated membership registration system etc. The sort of thing that most larger organizations just take for granted! And with individual volunteers coming and going with their own computers, over time the admin system starts to become weaker and problematic.
Healesville CoRE has been working on creating our own centralized admin system using easy to access off the shelf software that needed additional work to be integrated, and we were fortunate, with YR Council help, in obtaining a grant from Sustainability Victoria to develop this system for other not for profit groups.
A small team of our members and three external consultants are now bringing this work to fruition and a report will be compiled for Sustainability Victoria which we hope eventually to make available to other community energy groups and other not for profit groups throughout Australia.
We are very pleased that our initiative with this project has been recognized and acknowledged. The integrated system is now being used by Healesville CoRE and has made a huge difference to our organizational efficiency and productivity. We are excited that our work will now benefit other not for profit groups throughout Australia.
In addition we obtained a separate grant from FRRR to develop 40 Policy documents, which is now in process, and we are also hopeful we will be able to use this work to help other not for profits around Australia, thus leveraging the value of the grant funding!!