Boys & Girls Clubs of America

Challenge

With constituents distributed from schools and military bases to Native lands, BGCA faced a challenge to stay connected with their 5,000 clubs.

Sara Leutzinger, Vice President of Communications shared, “It’s incredibly important for us to be able to connect, engage, and support them. They need to be able to pick up the phone to communicate with local clubs, but also partners, donors, and foundations.”

And they need to be able to pick up the phone from anywhere. As CTO Mat Mathews said, “Back in the day if you changed offices, you literally had to unplug your phone and walk it over to the office with you. Today, you need to maintain that seamless sense of communication without being tied down to a physical phone.”

Not only did they have to stay connected, but they had to make sure their technology investment was up to date and on budget.

There is a misperception that nonprofits aren’t as tech savvy as corporate organizations. Leutzinger shared, “Boys and Girls Clubs have been around for more than 160 years. And the reason we’ve been around is because we’ve continued to stay relevant. Technology is so important to the work we do.” The challenge is staying ahead of the curve — because technology changes so quickly.

As a nonprofit, they also must be smart with their money. Sam Unglo, CFO for BGCA, said “People are giving us money to do good with. As a result, we need to be excellent stewards of those funds.”

The ultimate challenge was balancing a technology investment, return on that investment, and a need to also invest directly in their mission of serving the youth.

Solution

When BGCA selects a technology partner, they have a rigorous process to assess vendors. Mathews shared, “There are three key things that we look for. First, is the technology sound? Second, how much does it cost? Can it scale with us? And third, what’s the heart of the company?” GoTo checked all the boxes.

Boys & Girls Clubs of America implemented GoTo Connect as their softphone solution, using the MS Teams Connector. They chose GoTo Connect for how seamlessly it fits with the MS Teams experience. Mathews shared, “A lot of our staff don’t even know it’s GoTo Connect. But now it’s helping them become more agile in where they take their calls and how they do their meetings.”

That’s because GoTo Connect improves the calling experience on the backend without operational disruption. With anyone calling in, they won’t know if they’re talking to someone on a computer or mobile device or if they’re at home or in the office. According to Mathews, “It’s the quality of the communication that matters.”

Results

With the Microsoft integration, BGCA was able to merge two strategies. They reduced the cost of infrastructure while keeping the efficiency of online communications. In addition to an improved customer experience, the IT administrators have an easy-to-manage interface.

Time is precious, and often, nonprofits are forced to do more with less. The GoTo Admin dashboard is simple for anyone to use. GoTo Connect’s Dial Plan Editor is the powerful, drag-and-drop tool that truly makes it easy. With a few clicks, admins can create customized call routes, schedules, and more.

Mathews said “It helps you create those phone trees on the fly and make adjustments to them quickly.”

Overall, because they switched to a cloud-based business phone system, they have eliminated several common technology issues. They no longer maintain or manage physical desk phones, hardware, or servers. GoTo takes care of everything, providing seamless, cloud-based calling.

Mathews noted that it’s not just about communicating out, it’s about being able to listen. “Historically you would have to fly out, which we still do, but now we’re able to save our organization a lot of money by traveling less and having these much quicker but still personal meetings, virtually.”

At the end of the day, Mathews shared, “GoTo is part of how we deliver better business faster.” The company also has the “heart” he was looking for after assessing GoTo’s community service and employee engagement reputation. GoTo Connect is easy to deploy, modern, affordable, agile, and travels with you. Technology is the great equalizer for nonprofits to be able to keep up. “We’re now able to access the same products and solutions that private sector companies can.”

Boys & Girls Clubs of America believes that all kids deserve a safe place to belong, and this purpose keeps them going. To Mathews, this technology creates “an opportunity for those leaders to provide the right youth programming and tell these kids that they matter.”