Calum’s Cabin
by Elaine Forth - CEO
Who are Calum's Cabin?
Inspired by their son Calum, who passed away in 2007, this inspirational charity was set up by the Spiers family to support people with children suffering from cancer.
Calum's Cabin was envisioned as a way to give families the chance to have a holiday and make memories together, on the beautiful Isle of Bute.
The charity has continued to grow, and they now provide holidays in Bute and Ayrshire, as well as providing accomodation near cancer treatment centres in Glasgow. Calum's Cabin helps children and families at their time of greatest need.
How did we meet?
Inspiring Scotland’s Specialist Volunteer Network (SVN) connects professionals with charities across Scotland. SVN gives expertise and support from people with specialist skills to help them deliver for their stakeholders. Hyphen8 have worked closely with Inspiring Scotland for years, and I was so happy to be matched with Calum's Cabin through the Specialist Volunteer Network.
How did we work with Calum's Cabin?
Calum's Cabin is run by a small team on the Isle of Bute. As the charity grew, they found themselves increasingly overwhelmed with administration, as they relied heavily on paper-based processes to manage hundreds of accommodation requests and allocations each year. The charity also relies heavily on donations to fund services, and the team needed to ensure they had time available to organise events, apply for grants, run charity shops and co-ordinate volunteers. Calum's Cabin had already recognised that Salesforce could help them to become more efficient, but sadly their original source of support was halted by Covid.
After being introduced to the team, my first priority was to help them make some minor improvements, and to show them how they could replace some of their spreadsheets to capture fundraising and income data in Salesforce.
We then focused on their booking management system, and transformed this into an online process to save time and paper (and postage stamps)! Since this new process went live, Calum's Cabin have already received over 100 requests directly into the system. They also have access to live reporting and tools to make it much easier and quicker to review and track applicant journeys. Removing this administration burden from their staff has allowed the Calum's Cabin team to spend more time speaking with families, building relationships and helping to deliver amazing experiences for those of greatest need.
We now have all our information in one place, secure ... and less chance of human error
It's just been a brilliant experience so far, thank you very much to Hyphen8.
Francesca Bowman, Calum's Cabin
Making a difference
My company, Hyphen8, has a social purpose to make a difference to the nonprofit sector that we support. I’m so proud that beyond my own personal time volunteering on this project, we have been able to support Calum's Cabin in other ways including:
- Funding the first year of their online form-builder solution licence cost to get them started
- £1000 donation to their Christmas fundraising appeal to match fund what they had already raised
- Pro bono time from Hyphen8 technical consultants to configure forms, processes and screens
I was absolutely thrilled in November 2023 to have the opportunity to visit the team on the beautiful Isle of Bute. I was driven around to view Calum's Cabin’s holiday homes and experienced for myself how magical and peaceful the island is. This is a photo of us on the beach and in surprisingly spring-like weather!
In this video, Nikkita and Francesca talk about the charity’s work and how our pro bono support has helped them to better deliver their services to families:
Donations to Calum's Cabin directly support families going through the most difficult of times. Calum's Cabin are now fundraising for Christmas presents to be delivered to childrens’ cancer hospital wards, visit their website for details on how you can support their incredible work.
