Integrating service-delivery and funder-reporting

Since Goodlabs became an official Salesforce Consulting Partner in 2025, demand for our CRM services has really taken off.

Interest in Cimplify, our Salesforce-based CRM solution for charities, has increased particularly quickly. More and more organisations are looking for a practical, affordable way to move away from scattered spreadsheets, outdated databases and disconnected systems — without taking on the cost or complexity of a fully bespoke CRM build.

Cimplify has been designed specifically for busy charities that need a system which works around real services, real teams and real people. A typical implementation now takes around 10–12 weeks, giving organisations a structured but manageable route into using Salesforce effectively.

Week in, week out, we are now managing multiple implementation projects at the same time. Recent projects have included work with an international women’s network in Brighton, addiction support and recovery charities in Cumbria and Reading, a project supporting women survivors of abuse to rebuild skills and confidence, a national mentoring charity, women’s health charities in Tyneside and the West Midlands, and several other charities with a wide range of service delivery models.

What these organisations often have in common is not a desire for complicated technology, but a need for better ways to manage relationships, referrals, activities, outcomes and reporting. They want a CRM that supports the way their staff actually work.

They also need systems that help them respond to the realities of charity funding. Many organisations are delivering multiple funded programmes at the same time, each with its own outputs, outcomes, monitoring requirements and reporting deadlines. When service delivery data and funding data sit in separate spreadsheets or disconnected systems, it becomes harder to show what has been delivered, who has benefited, and what difference the work has made.

This is one of the reasons Cimplify is proving so useful. Because it is designed to support the day-to-day delivery of services — including the ongoing interactions between service users, staff and partner professionals — it helps organisations keep track of what is actually happening on the ground. That makes impact easier to evidence and report. It also means that funding requirements and contract delivery commitments are simpler to manage, because Cimplify brings together service delivery, outcomes and funder reporting within the same system, rather than treating them as separate silos.

New customers tell us they value Goodlabs’ can-do attitude, our ability to speak human rather than blind people with tech-speak, and the flexibility of Cimplify itself. Because Cimplify provides a strong, charity-focused starting point, it reduces both build time and cost whilst still allowing each system to be adapted to the specific needs of the organisation.

For us, becoming a Salesforce Consulting Partner has strengthened the work we were already doing: helping charities make better use of technology without losing sight of their mission, their people, their funders, or the communities they serve.

Ai 'Agents' are coming...

Goodlabs’ managing director Matt Wilson shares his thoughts about AI-influenced changes to the Salesforce brand and wider product offering

It’s corporate logo is a blue cloud with the word Salesforce in it. The brand presides over a huge range of interconnected digital data products, many with “cloud” in the title. But now many are being re-badged with “agent” instead — part of a serious pivot to AI. Recent articles circulating after this year’s Dreamforce, including one reporting Marc Benioff’s comment that he might even rename the company Agentforce, made me stop and think about what this could mean for the #nonprofit sector.

And why, despite my reservations about the terminology, I’m genuinely excited about what AI agents could mean for charities. I’ll share three reasons.

My business introduces lots of charities to Salesforce, largely because of its core CRM strengths and the generous discounts available for smaller organisations. But every time I demo the system to a new prospect, I have to start with: “Why would a charity be interested in a product with ‘Sales’ in its name?” I’d be quite happy not to have to do that any more.

That said, I’m not convinced that the words Agent and AI naturally go together in most people’s minds. There’s a real risk of confusion. But if we put the branding to one side, the underlying direction of travel is fascinating — because AI agents could genuinely reshape how busy charities manage and report on their services.

Here are three reasons I’m excited.

1. More human referral journeys
Referral pathways for people seeking help can be long, clinical, and complicated. AI agents could make them feel far more human. Instead of navigating complex forms, someone could describe their situation in their own words and be guided through a gentle, conversational process that captures exactly what a service needs. The same outcomes, but with greater dignity and far less friction.

2. Reporting that feels like insight, not admin
Salesforce reports and dashboards already help to reduce the stress around impact reporting — but the learning curve is still steep. AI could flatten it. Imagine asking, “Show me referral trends over the past six months and highlight anything unusual,” and receiving a dashboard, a narrative summary, and suggested next questions. Not replacing good measurement practice, but making it accessible to every organisation.

3. Training and support woven directly into the CRM
Many frontline workers don’t see themselves as ‘tech-confident’, and they shouldn’t have to be. AI assistants could sit within the CRM as a calm, patient guide: helping staff complete tasks, record interactions accurately, follow safeguarding steps, or simply remember where a field lives. Real-time support embedded in daily work, improving confidence and data quality simultaneously.

If Salesforce is serious about reframing its ecosystem around agents and AI, I hope our sector doesn’t just brace for the change — but sees the opportunity in it. Done well, these tools could help charities spend less time wrestling with systems and more time doing what they do best: supporting people.

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.

Cimpl arrives in Cumbria

The roster of charities around the UK switching to our Cimpl CRM continues to grow with the latest deployment on behalf of a charity in Kendal serving those who are homeless, vulnerable housed, lonely or needing support.

As is often the case, the charity had an existing CRM but it was no longer meeting their needs. The legacy system was causing staff and volunteers a lot of frustration, sapping their time, and all sorts of workarounds were needed to account for its inability to adapt their ever-evolving service.

Having got to know the charity first through a piece of strategic work looking at Theory of Change and a new outcomes framework we were well versed in the impact that the charity was making and the demands of its funders with respect to reporting on that impact.

At Goodlabs we always encourage an ‘impact-first’ approach. This ensures data management is constructed around measuring the things that matter most. Upskilling staff is key to this too, because however well designed the CRM may be ultimately the reports and dashboards it presents are only as good as the data going in. Patiently overcoming system-adoption anxieties is key, including when necessary going at the pace of users who need additional hand-holding.

Feedback from the charity has been really encouraging. It’s great to know that we’ve been able to deliver on our promise to “make impact easier”.

If you’d like a demo of Cimpl drop a line to: cimpl@goodlabs.uk

Pic by Jonny Gios, Unsplash

New CRM system for Rape Crisis

Rape Crisis Tyneside & Northumberland belongs to the national network of Rape Crisis centres, providing vital services for women who have experienced sexual abuse, exploitation and violence. Our connection came via our delivery relationship with Lloyds Bank Foundation, one of RCTN’s funders, along with the Ministry of Justice and others.

Like many charities in receipt of funding from major public and corporate sector sources RCTN has to navigate a vast array of statistics about the work that it is delivering. Historically this had been done via a Microsoft Access database but this technology was fast becoming obsolete and its limitations myriad.

Goodlabs supported RCTN through a multi-phased project that involved reflecting critically on systems and processes for client/case management, along with development of a Theory of Change and Outcomes Framework. This was followed by the production of a detailed specification outlining the essential functionality of the new CRM, and then taking this to the market via a proportionate tendering process. Systems were demoed, providers shortlisted and interviewed and eventually a decision made.

Finally Goodlabs provided arms-length project management through the build and implementation phase, support with export and import of historic data, plus the coaching and training of key staff to ensure rapid adoption of the new platform (a custom iteration of the Salesforce based ‘In-Form’ supplied by Homeless Link).