A Powerful CRM For A Mighty Charity

The Kennedy Street mission

Small but Mighty: Implementing Salesforce for Kennedy Street Recovery

We’ve loved working with the team at Kennedy Street Recovery down in Brighton — a community-led charity doing incredible things to support people in recovery from addiction.

While they might be small in terms of staff headcount, but they really are mighty when it comes to impact. Kennedy Street is all about lived experience, peer support, volunteering, and building real community — and you can feel that energy in everything they do. From their peer-led recovery workshops to their daily Recovery Café, they’re creating spaces where people feel safe, supported, and seen. It's all about practical help, emotional connection, and hope — and it’s working. Lives are being rebuilt every day.

When they first came to us, Kennedy Street were using an old custom-built database that was no longer fit for purpose. To keep things ticking over, they were relying heavily on spreadsheets — which was far from ideal as a means of tracking complex journeys of change.

That’s where Cimplify came in — our Salesforce-based impact management system designed especially for charities. We worked closely with Mark and the team to customise the core application around their operating model — to deliver a solution that reflects the way they work and supports the brilliant things they’re already doing.

As Mark puts it:

"Working with Matt and Abi at Goodlabs to build, configure and implement our new Cimplify CRM has been a great experience. The attention to detail and consideration of the needs and nuances of our charity has been second to none. They coached us through the whole process from set up to training, and the support has meant that we are now really confident moving forward with using the system. I also know that if we get stuck they will be there to help, which is very reassuring. Cimplify itself is really intuitive and our team started using it on day one. I would definitely recommend Goodlabs and Cimplify."

Thank you, Mark! That means a lot.

It’s been a real pleasure to work alongside such a passionate and values-driven team. We’re looking forward to continue to support Kennedy Street in the years ahead.

Cimplify on-the-go!

Salesforce App – Stay Connected Wherever You Work

Did you know that you can also access Cimplify on the go via the Salesforce app which is available from the Apple App store and Google Play store.

Accessing Cimplify via the Salesforce mobile app empowers your team to manage beneficiary interactions effortlessly on the go, ensuring important updates and insights are always at your fingertips. With mobile accessibility, your charity can look up and record activities away from the desk—making your CRM system more flexible, responsive, and aligned with the realities of frontline charity work. The mobile app is ideal for youth groups, outreach services, or support meetings at community venues, you can:

• Record Data Instantly: Take registers of group attendance or log client interactions in real-time.

• Boost Productivity: Eliminate paperwork delays by entering and updating your data on-the-go.

• Easy to Use: Intuitive design ensures even non-technical users feel comfortable and confident.

• Secure and Reliable: Benefit from Salesforce's robust security while accessing Cimplify remotely.

The app is now available for free to all users with either full or platform licences.

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Portal Access for Volunteers and Sessional Team

Do you involve volunteers or sessional workers in your charity's daily activities? Often, organisations want these valuable team members to complete simple yet important tasks—like logging attendance at support groups or recording mentoring sessions—without giving them full access to the entire CRM system.

Cimplify's new portal offers an effective solution:

• Secure Individual Logins: Each volunteer receives their own secure login, managed easily by your admin.

• Tailored Access: Volunteers only see the data relevant to their role—perfect for a volunteer group leader who interacts with specific beneficiaries.

• Cost-Effective Pricing: From just £1/user/month.

• Mobile Responsive: Access the portal smoothly from any device, anywhere.

Set-up is straightforward with affordable one-off fees, making it easy to expand secure access to your wider team without stretching your budget.

Interested in seeing how a portal could benefit your team? Send us an email to find out more.

Decisions, decisions...

We know that choosing a CRM product can be bewildering. There are lots of different products out there, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. To help steer you onto the right track take a few minutes to look over our Cimpl decision tree. It will help you make an initial assessment of whether our product should be added to your shortlist. And remember, we offer a live demo even if you’re still just browsing.

Complex Needs, Cimpl Data

People can be complicated, but data shouldn’t be

A charity in the West Midlands recently asked for our support to transform their data management practices in relation to the recording of interactions with their clients. Their service users have multiple and complex needs, often relating to mental health, addiction, or both. A range of services are offered including 1:1 support, group work and also accommodation.

Through our Cimpl CRM for charities we were able to migrate them over to a more efficient and organised way of operating. No more client data hiding in Word documents hidden on Sharepoint, in Teams or even worse, on staff C drives. Now the whole team has role-related access to the clients relevant to their service. For management, reporting has been brought to life with realtime dashboards providing insight into service demand month by month. Clients presenting risks are more easily identified meaning that creating a safer environment for everyone.

The moral of the story is that whilst people may be complex, data can still be Cimpl!

CRM for Veteran's Charity

Charities come in all shapes and sizes, serving all sorts of different groups in society. We were pleased to be asked to support a Veterans charity for the first time.

Veteran’s HQ Liverpool provides much-needed support to hundreds of ex-servicemen and women right across the Merseyside region. The leadership team of the charity and its committed volunteers were beginning to struggle to keep track of all the many diverse requests for support and a busy schedule of participation in a range of groups and activities.

Using our Cimpl CRM application which utilises the security and versatility of the Salesforce platform we were able to deliver a user-friendly and cost-effective solution. In order to ensure that new users to the system had the best possible start we travelled to Liverpool to deliver in-person training.

In particular the in-built report and dashboard features that Cimpl offers have transformed the way that the charity reports back to its various funders, really taking the sting out of producing detailed reports on activity and impact.

Don’t be shy to get in touch if you’d like a demo of how our Cimpl CRM could make a difference to the way your charity manages its data.

The Power of Messaging

Cimpl has a new messaging partner: ValueText

We are always working on ways to improve our CRM application: Cimpl. One of the things we’ve been wanting to add for some time is an integrated messaging service as an alternative to email.

This requirement was really important for a new charity CRM client, a mental health charity based in North Wales. They need to keep in close contact with their service users as their 1:1 and group programmes tend to be quite dynamic. For their service users email is not a channel they use often for communication, but they all have mobile phones. Two-way chatting and also the ability to bulk message to a wide range of different lists was essential.

After testing a number of third party products we chose to go with ValueText. The quality of their solution, ease of use, great customer service and most of all highly competitive pricing (including a charity discount) made them stand out from the competition.

Having live tested this solution for several weeks we’re now really happy to offer it to all of our Cimpl customers who also wish to make the most of the power of messaging!

The Impact of Arts

Goodlabs MD, Matt Wilson, at Gosforth Civic Theatre

Gosforth Civic Theatre is a fantastic arts venue on the north side of Newcastle. It has recently undergone a huge refurb project and has a great atmosphere. The vibe of the place is about far more than the new internal layout - it’s all about the people. GCT is home to Liberdade, an innovative arts charity that supports people with learning disabilities. We were delighted to be introduced as part of our ongoing work with the Lloyds Bank Foundation.

Our work with GCT was twofold…

First, we facilitated a full review of their existing theory of change. Our objective was to ensure that it really accurately and accessibly described the impact being made in the lives of programme participants. In practice this meant mapping out the different participant groups, both PWLD and not. Matt facilitated a staff workshop to develop a draft set of outcomes and the team followed this up with some specific engagement with their LD groups to sense check it. The final draft revolved around five “I CAN” statements: I can be happy, I can be healthy, I can be me, I can be creative, I can belong.

The other half of the work related to preparation for the shift to using our Cimplify CRM application, to be used to monitor participation and measure impact. This involved looking at the wide range of activities that are taking place, how they are currently being recorded, what data is being held at the moment about participants, and how all this might interface with the distinctly different data operation around the marketing of shows, the sale of tickets and receiving feedback from audiences.

It’s always great to work with charities that are so embedded in their local communities and getting on with their work with a sense of vision and of joy. This really came across in this project :-)

Powering VODA's Impact with Salesforce

Through the Power Of Us program charities can access 10 free Salesforce user licences, worth around £3000.

Having worked with third sector infrastructure body VODA on several projects previously we’ve developed a good understanding of their needs. When they recently approached us for support in figuring out the best way to manage the application process for a substantial new grants fund we immediately knew of the perfect solution…

2021 was the year in which Goodlabs took its work on the Salesforce platform to a whole new level, completing several implementations for charities of different shapes and sizes. In each case we supported the client through the process of registering and successfully gaining approval for free Salesforce user licences via the ‘Power Of Us’ programme. Through this scheme Salesforce.org generously provides access to a full Enterprise Edition of the Salesforce CRM platform.

That’s full access to the world’s #1 CRM product, for free!

Of course, as a highly complex database product, Salesforce isn’t an out-of-the-box solution. That’s why Goodlabs has spent hundreds of hours developing a bespoke solution for the non-profit sector that simplifies the system with a focus on making available its most powerful functionality through the Salesforce ‘Lightning’ user interface.

On this project we were pleased to work for the first time with Advanz101, a registered Salesforce consulting partner with offices in the USA and India. They provided some next-level ninja skills to automate elements of the grant application process, increasing efficiency by removing the need for manual eligibility checks and notification emails. Thanks to the team for their great work!

PS - If you’re still faffing around trying to manage your charity using spreadsheets and would like to look into moving to the Salesforce platform drop us a line on salesforce@goodlabs.uk