Client Spotlight: Wings for Life Uses ImportOmatic to Streamline Their Ecosystem of Data Sources

Most organizations have an “About Us” page where you can see their mission statement, history, and key team members. Wings for Life – UK is no different in that regard, but their page starts with a stunningly simple mission statement:

As you read their history and scroll through the scientific advisory boards listed, you quickly see that their mission is not actually simple at all. Wings for Life supports research towards curing spinal cord injuries with the help of an international team of scientists and physicians. Their World Run event includes 34 races around the world that start at the exact same time! The logistics of coordinating such an event must be overwhelming. Now consider managing data of that scale.

I first met the Wings for Life – UK team in January 2016, when they were starting to implement ImportOmatic for use with their online fundraising. Like many organizations, they use a variety of giving platforms to reduce the inconveniences that could prevent a supporter from completing a donation. Per Nikki Wilson, Head of Wings for Life – UK, “We are using ImportOmatic for a monthly upload of donations and donor details from two fundraising platforms – Virgin Money Giving and JustGiving.” In addition to those two platforms, they are also importing recurring gift information from their bank and event registration details. These were fairly complicated import processes that took us quite a while to configure together. For Nikki, the effort is worth the result, “For us this is less about time saving, and more about the huge benefits of having a single supporter view.”

Now that we’ve built a few different variations of import profiles together, Nikki feels confident that she can continue to customize ImportOmatic profiles to ever-changing data sources and database preferences. “As a small charity, we don’t have dedicated database admin support,” so the ability to copy existing profiles means they can, “start from a really good base when building new profiles!”

At the end of the day, Nikki and the rest of her team at Wings for Life – UK know that the challenge of managing data will continue to grow for not-for-profit organizations. That is why her team focuses on ensuring the data makes sense not just for today, but for next year too. The importance of updating records accurately, not just adding data, is a primary goal, “Using IOM is fundamental in allowing us to develop relationships with our donors so we can retain them for the long term.”

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