Saint Andrew’s School Reduces Fundraising Overhead with PairSoft

The Client

Saint Andrew’s School is a private day and boarding school in Boca Raton, Florida, educating students in the Episcopal tradition, from pre-K through 12th grade. Named for the patron saint of Scotland, Saint Andrew, the school was founded in 1962 and today serves nearly 1,300 students and their families.

The Challenge

Fundraising at Saint Andrew’s School — whether for the annual fund, endowments, or capital projects — is essential to providing students with the top-flight resources, facilities, and educators they need to thrive and fulfill their highest potential.

But prior to 2008, the development team at Saint Andrew’s was bogged down by tedious administrative tasks and paperwork that took away precious time to build and expand their network of top donors.

“We would have stacks of donor-related documents that took up to three days to get sorted and filed,” recalled Paulette Bassil, director of data management and donor research for Saint Andrew’s School. “And each document search request would consume a lot of our staff’s time.”

The Solution

Bassil was looking for a document management system that could work seamlessly with The Raiser’s Edge, the school’s fundraising and donor management software by Blackbaud. The system she turned to was PairSoft in 2008.

“Now, when I open a donor record from Raiser’s Edge, I can access his or her paperwork directly from that record using PairSoft,” said Bassil. “Especially when you have a donor on the phone, you don’t want to have to say, ‘Oh, wait. I need to go find that document.’ With PairSoft, we can respond immediately, and that’s so important in building long-term relationships with our donors.”

The Results

What has been PairSoft’s impact? Bassil identified these success indicators at Saint Andrew’s:

• Document search requests, which took 10 to 20 minutes each to process, now take 1 to 3 minutes maximum.
• Document filing that often took up to 3 days, can now be completed within minutes.
• Digitizing donor documents has reduced the need for file cabinets, freeing up office space for more productive uses.
• The development department’s employees are happier because they can spend less time on paperwork and more time serving donors.