Halifax Northern Ireland
About Halifax Foundation for Northern Ireland
Halifax Foundation for Northern Ireland (HFNI) is a grant-giving foundation supported by Lloyds Banking Group. With a dedicated team of just six staff members, HFNI provides crucial funding to charities across Northern Ireland.
To enhance efficiency and improve grantee support, HFNI partnered with Hyphen8 to implement Salesforce, revolutionising its grant management processes.
The Challenge: A System in Need of Change
HFNI relied on an outdated grant management system that was slow, inefficient, and dependent on external IT support. This created significant roadblocks for the charity to be able to respond to emergencies and areas that needed instant attention, as well as reporting for their busy CEO, Brenda McMullen.
Our previous system was so restrictive.
We couldn't customise reports or make changes without external help, which made it hard to respond quickly.
It was a lot of manual input and paper-based processes, making things unnecessarily slow when we needed to act fast!"
- Brenda McMullen, CEO of HFNI
HFNI's Key Pain Points
HFNI needed a system that could keep up with their growing demands.
Managing grants, reporting, paper based systems and manual processes was slowing them down, leaving less time to focus on supporting charities. A digital transformation was essential to eliminate inefficiencies and provide a more responsive service to grantees.
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Cumbersome Grant Management Processes
- The team wanted to be able to react quickly to things and be a true support to their community in urgent situations.
Grant terms and conditions had to be signed physically, creating bottlenecks, especially during emergencies like COVID-19.
- Manual processes also meant it was slowing grantees down, and using a lot of their time when they already have a lot of work to do.
- Manual workflows meant staff spent significant time on repetitive tasks rather than strategic initiatives.
Limited automation led to delays in processing applications and grant approvals.
- The team wanted to be able to react quickly to things and be a true support to their community in urgent situations.
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Reporting Challenges
HFNI struggled to generate real-time insights due to the lack of an integrated reporting system.
Reports required external support, making data retrieval slow and inefficient.
Customising reports to fit specific grant tracking needs was difficult and time-consuming.
The team had a inability to generate automated dashboards meant leadership lacked instant visibility into grant distribution.
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Fragmented Systems & Limited Collaboration
- Multiple disconnected systems, spreadsheets, and paper-based processes created inefficiencies.
Team members had difficulty accessing consistent and up-to-date information.
A lack of centralised data management meant crucial details were often duplicated or lost.
Collaboration between team members was hindered due to the absence of a single source of truth.
HFNI needed a system that could keep up with their growing demands. Managing grants manually was slowing them down, leaving less time to focus on supporting charities. A digital transformation was essential to eliminate inefficiencies and provide a more responsive service to grantees
- Multiple disconnected systems, spreadsheets, and paper-based processes created inefficiencies.
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Data, reporting and decision making
- Their driven CEO wanted to be able to have reports at her fingertips to enable the organisation to create incredible impacts
Generating reports and extracting data required external assistance, delaying critical tasks.
The small team needed a system that enabled seamless collaboration and easy access to shared information.
- Their CEO wanted to be able to produce reports in a few clicks for their board and meetings rather than it taking hours or days of prep time
- Their driven CEO wanted to be able to have reports at her fingertips to enable the organisation to create incredible impacts
The Solution: A Salesforce System tailored to HFNI
Hyphen8 implemented a tailored Salesforce solution that streamlined HFNI's grant management operations, reducing manual work and improving efficiency.
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Seamless Transition
- The Hyphen8 team knew that a seamless transition was important and worked with Brenda and the team to create a platform and plan that suited their needs.
- All prep work was done so that the platform was tailored to what the team needed to save them time and resources.
- We worked with the team to understand what reports and dashboards would best suit their needs and work.
- We migrated their system to Salesforce over a single weekend, ensuring zero downtime.
- The Hyphen8 team knew that a seamless transition was important and worked with Brenda and the team to create a platform and plan that suited their needs.
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Automated Grant Management
Digital signatures replaced physical paperwork, expediting the grant approval process.
Customised workflows allowed the team to manage applications and funds in real time, freeing them up to spend time with their charities in person, which was one of their goals.
- Every grant application in one place, on Salesforce, so that everyone in the team can see things in real time, with no downtime or possible errors.
This also allows Grant Officers to ensure that they can give charities more 1-2-1 support which was a big goal.
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Empowered Team & Scalability
- The system created enables the team to prioritise their work and tasks in one single place.
Staff can now create reports, design applications, and adjust workflows without external IT support.
The system aligns with HFNI's five-year strategy, enabling the launch of five new grant programmes.
- The team have a solution to measure everything, and make data driven decisions.
- The system created enables the team to prioritise their work and tasks in one single place.
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Leadership- a system supporting their CEO
- Their CEO shared what was important to her, and we built a system and solution to suit their needs to ensure she can work far more effectively using Salesforce.
- Reporting capabilities for the CEO and SLT have been built to empower quicker board reporting, leadership insights and better data driven decisions.
- The system was also built to suit the team's culture and ways of working to ensure a smooth and easy transition to Salesforce.
- Their CEO shared what was important to her, and we built a system and solution to suit their needs to ensure she can work far more effectively using Salesforce.
Meet Brenda
Hear more about the impact of Salesforce and Hyphen8 from Brenda, CEO of HFNI.
Here, Brenda shares what the project was like to work on.
The Impact of working with Hyphen8
The Impact
Salesforce has empowered HFNI with a more efficient, collaborative, and data-driven approach to grant management, ensuring they can support more charities with greater impact.
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Expanded Impact Across the Organisation
- Staff are now empowered to generate and customise reports instantly without external IT support.
Electronic signatures streamlined processes, eliminating delays caused by physical paperwork.
The system improved accessibility, allowing team members to access and share data seamlessly.
More time is now spent nurturing relationships with grantees rather than managing administrative burdens.
- Staff are now empowered to generate and customise reports instantly without external IT support.
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Operational Efficiency and Collaboration
- The entire team is connected to a centralised system, making collaboration seamless, and giving better work-life balance as people can work remotely, on the go with charities.
Grants officers can now engage in more one-on-one support with charities.
Trustees have real-time access to reporting and insights to make informed decisions, without having to ask staff to help them saving everyone time.
- The entire team is connected to a centralised system, making collaboration seamless, and giving better work-life balance as people can work remotely, on the go with charities.
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Scalability and Future Growth
- HFNI is launching five new grant programmes in alignment with their five-year strategy, Salesforce supports their new ideas and work in a meaningful and impactful way to deliver instant ROI.
The flexibility of Salesforce allows HFNI to design and refine applications in-house with Hyphen8's support.
Hyphen8's build of Salesforce ensures continuous improvement and innovation in HFNI's grant management system can be done easily and seamlessly.
- Their data is all in one place, meaning if they choose to adopt AI, they will be able to do this as all data is in one place.
- HFNI is launching five new grant programmes in alignment with their five-year strategy, Salesforce supports their new ideas and work in a meaningful and impactful way to deliver instant ROI.
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Impact on leaders and board members
- Greater autonomy: No longer reliant on external IT support to generate reports or update the system.
Faster decision-making: Access to real-time data allows for quicker, more informed grant approvals.
Reduced administrative burden: More time to focus on strategic initiatives rather than manual processes.
Seamless collaboration: Easily connects with the team, trustees, and grantees without barriers.
Confidence in system reliability: The transition was smooth, and the system continues to evolve with HFNI's needs.
Enhanced grantee relationships: More time for personal engagement with charities and applicants.
Scalability for the future: Ready to launch new grant programmes with streamlined processes and Hyphen8's continued support.
- Greater autonomy: No longer reliant on external IT support to generate reports or update the system.
Making an impact
"Using the online grant management system on Salesforce has had a massive impact on our grant-making.
We have saved so much time thanks to Hyphen8.
We have more time to spend with our charities and applicants, and that nurturing support is so important-it's who we are."
- Brenda McMullen, CEO of HFNI
Why Did You Choose Salesforce and Hyphen8?
Hyphen8's expertise in grant management, nonprofit experience, and ongoing support made them the perfect partner.
"Hyphen8's knowledge of grant-making was fantastic!
They made suggestions to improve our efficiency, tailored the system to our needs, and their commitment to supporting communities through pro bono work was a huge plus."
- Brenda, CEO of HFNI
Advice for other charities
"For any charity or foundation considering a move to Salesforce with Hyphen8, my advice is simple-do it.
The transition was seamless; we shut down our old system on a Friday and were live by Monday, with no complaints.
The support we received was outstanding, and the impact on our operations has been transformational.
Hyphen8 truly understands the sector, and their ability to tailor a solution to fit our needs was invaluable. We now have a system that empowers us, saves time, and ultimately helps us better serve our grantees."
- Brenda, CEO of HFNI
