Project Overview
Crimestoppers, the independent charity that gives people the power to speak up and stop crime anonymously, had been relying on a legacy database that was cumbersome to use and failed to encourage staff engagement. As the charity expanded, the need to effectively share relationship information across the organisation — covering volunteers, partners, funders and business partners — became increasingly critical.
Building on its positive experience of working with Transparity on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Crimestoppers selected Transparity to implement Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (CE). The result is a unified Microsoft ecosystem that has automated volunteer recruitment, streamlined event and fundraising management, retired several legacy systems and given every member of staff visibility of the charity’s relationships.
The Challenge
As the charity expanded over the past decade, the need to effectively share relationship information across the organisation became increasingly important. However, Crimestoppers relied on a legacy database that was cumbersome to use and failed to encourage staff engagement in capturing the essential information the organisation required.
“We recognised it was time to replace the old system with an integrated solution that would empower our staff and volunteers to maximise the value of our relationships while eliminating a significant barrier to efficiency within the organisation.” — Karen Ogborn, Chief of Staff, Crimestoppers
Crimestoppers selected Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (CE) as the natural choice, seamlessly integrating with its Business Central and Microsoft Office ecosystem while offering comprehensive functionality for Sales, Marketing, and Customer Relationship Management.
“Our positive experience with Transparity, who assisted us with Microsoft’s Business Central solution, made them the obvious choice for the Dynamics CE implementation.” — Karen Ogborn, Chief of Staff, Crimestoppers
The Solution
Crimestoppers has implemented the main components of Dynamics CE, supporting all of its customer-facing activities such as providing services to its partners, keeping track of its volunteer army and maximising the value of its relationships with clients, volunteers, funders and business partners.
“We needed a solution which was flexible enough to support a wide range of activities and relationships that we rely on to achieve our goals. It was important that it would be easy to use, enabling our people to populate the database without having to change their current behaviours. Dynamics CE certainly delivers all of that for us.” — Karen Ogborn, Chief of Staff, Crimestoppers
The recruitment and onboarding of volunteers has now transformed from a labour-intensive process of sending individual emails and manually tracking applicants to a largely automated journey. New recruits can complete an online application, while regional and central teams review submissions and schedule interviews. Automated workflows in CE send emails at every stage, from initial contact to induction, including reminders for missed appointments.
Event management for stakeholders has become seamless, allowing for easy event setup, email invitations, RSVP tracking, and even QR code check-in at events. All attendee information is stored in the system, providing a clear overview of participation history.
Fundraising efforts, such as challenge events like The London Marathon and Great North Run, are now more efficient, enabling organisers to manage invitations, track responses, and engage fundraisers in social media stories and future customer surveys.
Marketing campaigns have also been enhanced, empowering local and regional teams to run targeted initiatives while easily identifying stakeholders and tracking engagement history to strengthen relationships.
“We’ve already been able to retire several systems previously used for sending emails and conducting surveys, saving both money and the time spent coordinating between different data sources… We have deliberately built the solution without walls, allowing everyone to see and contribute to our relationship data. This is crucial to our central objective of maximising the value of our relationships. With seamless integration into Microsoft Office, customer records are automatically linked to relevant emails and Teams meetings without any manual effort. This level of transparency is transforming our approach to customer relationship management.” — Karen Ogborn, Chief of Staff, Crimestoppers
The Outcome
Increased efficiency
By leveraging Dynamics CE’s process flows and automation, Crimestoppers has significantly reduced the manual effort involved in volunteer recruitment and onboarding, event management, and fundraising activities.
Improved visibility of relationships
An intuitive CRM solution allows all staff to view engagement with stakeholders, partners, and other beneficiaries, ensuring opportunities are maximised and relationships are effectively nurtured.
Future proofing
Crimestoppers now operates a unified Microsoft ecosystem, integrating Business Central and Dynamics CE to support activities across finance, sales, marketing, fundraising and customer relationship management, with the scalability to grow with the organisation.
Cost savings
The implementation of Dynamics CE at Crimestoppers has already enabled the retirement of several legacy systems managing volunteer data, email campaigns, and customer surveys, cutting maintenance and upgrade costs.
