Conservation International Secures Donor Records and Streamlines Operations with PaperSave®, Helping Them to Devote More Time to Fulfill Their Mission.
Published: July 2005

Conservation International faced a common scenario for active non-profits with thousands of gifts to process each year: a complex series of tasks requiring excessive man hours to photocopy, manually route and file each donation. By implementing PaperSave, Conservation International has a centralized archiving system that saves source documents and electronically routes information throughout the organization.

Organization Overview
Conservation International's (Conservation) mission is to conserve the Earth's living natural heritage, our global biodiversity, and to demonstrate that human societies are able to live harmoniously with nature. Conservation applies innovations in science, economics, policy and community participation to protect the Earth's richest regions of plant and animal diversity in the biodiversity hotspots, wilderness areas and key marine ecosystems. With headquarters in Washington, D.C., Conservation works in more than 40 countries on four continents.

Situation
When the staff at Conservation received gift checks, they went through a complex series of cumbersome manual processes. Each gift was photocopied up to three times! one for gift entry into the Raiser's Edge, one to manually route to the accounting department and one for the donor's permanent file the for future reference. At Conservation, documenting and securing each transaction is mission critical. However, utilizing excessive staff hours to perform such tasks can take away valuable time that can be devoted to carrying out the organizations' mission of protecting the world's natural resources.

With over 40 countries to serve and millions of donor dollars to compete for, Conservation recognizes the need to streamline operations and secure sensitive donor information. In fact, it is critical in today's world to demonstrate to its constituents that it actively seeks to become more efficient while maintaining their privacy.

Solution
Solutions@MBA, integrated PaperSave into Conservation's daily workflow. Conservation uses Blackbaud's Raiser's Edge Software to manage its fundraising efforts. Solutions@MBA, LLC, developed PaperSave to automate the process of imaging and storing paper and electronic documents in widely used information systems such as the Raiser's Edge. PaperSave provides a complete and secure electronic storage system for source documents without the inherent inefficiencies and risk of loss associated with traditional paper filing systems. PaperSave also seamlessly integrates the security in the Raiser's Edge to the source documents, eliminating the need for creating new user permissions to maintain the privacy of all gifts and donor files. As a result, paper files are no longer freely accessible and can only be viewed by authorized personnel.

With PaperSave, the staff at Conservation now scans a donor check and associates it with a newly entered gift record at the time that that gift record is recorded. The gift checks are no longer photocopied. Instead, each gift check image is electronically routed from within PaperSave to the accounting department. There is no need to photocopy the original for the donor's permanent file, as PaperSave has now become the permanent electronic file cabinet for donor files.

Benefits
PaperSave has provided Conservation with the ability to effectively share documents between departments without having to photocopy and manually route them. All documents are efficiently maintained online for immediate access and safely stored offsite in the event of a disaster. With PaperSave Conservation's staff can spend more time on mission-critical tasks and less time on administrative tasks. Conservational International has streamlined administrative costs by dramatically reducing the number of photocopies. It has also minimized the propagation of paper throughout the office, furthering Conservation's mission of protecting our natural resources. With PaperSave, documenting and securing each transaction with ease has become a reality, and Conservation can now devote more time to carrying out its all important mission.