From the CANFIT team!

From the CANFIT team!

Over the past week, we’ve been fielding many questions from concerned organizations over the planned closure of the HOMES database. We would like to take this opportunity to assure everyone that we will do everything in our power to make sure that your organization can continue to tell your story after March 31, 2010. As promised, we are sending out this email to help answer some of your questions, and hopefully prompt you to contact us so that we can provide you with a demonstration of what the CANFIT philosophy is all about.

What is the CANFIT Philosophy?

The CANFIT Philosophy is the idea that each non-profit organization is unique, and has a unique story to tell. This takes involvement from everyone in your organization to help document the important role you play in the community, and the effect you have on your clients’ lives. To do this, Dignity Computer Solutions has developed the CANFIT Database System which is a customized, easy to use database which generates reports for funders such as the United Way, FCSS, ECALA, Health Canada, Alberta Education, Region 6 etc.

Why is Customization So Important?

Think about how much your organization has changed over the past few years. Your role has grown, your staff has changed, and your funders have changed their requirements. Your database should:
- Be easy to use: Databases which are easy to use ensure that your staff enjoy using your database, and will make sure that information is kept current
- Be responsive to feedback: Your database developer should schedule regular meetings to get your feedback, and implement regular changes.
- Be responsive to changing reporting requirements: Your reports should be easy to generate, and be run regularly so that there are no surprises when your reports are due. It should be possible to pool and report upon aggregate data from similar agencies.

Will CANFIT Track Everything We Need?

Yes, out of the package, CANFIT tracks:
- Client demographics such as Ethnicity, Aboriginal Status, Marital Status, Education Level, Financial Status / Financial Assistance etc.
- Contact notes which let you document your contact with a client along with any referrals made. You can also indicate which of your agency success indicators that the contact satisfies.
- The barriers that your client comes in with, and how your work with them helps overcome those barriers, by helping them set and achieve goals. Again, this links up with your logic model.
- Tracking of pre and post surveys. The responses to these surveys can be tracked for improvement, and how they relate to success indicators in your logic model.
- Activity registration and attendance tracking. Over any date range, unique participants and attendance percentages can be reported on.
- Quality control which allow you to find missing or inconsistent data.
- Reminders so that your staff can set up follow up and monitor client progress
- Volunteer Tracking, including timesheets
- Resource library tracking
- An administration module which helps you enter in your logic model, set up your staff and security permissions, and customize drop down boxes to make data entry easy and consistent
- A community relations module which allows you to track specific funding requirements from your funders, and how they map to your database. The community relations module also allows you to send out broadcast emails, track donations, and send out letters of appreciation.

That’s just the starting point! Those are just the common things that most agencies need. After that, we work with your agency to make sure that your unique requirements are tracked, and that your unique story is told. After everything is set up and tested, on-line help and video tutorials are made available to staff.

How Well Established Is CANFIT?

In one form or another, CANFIT has been in service since 1999. Over the past few years, we’ve worked towards perfecting the database to make sure that people know that CANFIT users are happy users. CANFIT is not dependant on any government funding, and conforms to the business practice of permanent, professional computer support guaranteed by Dignity Computer Solutions.
Although most of our clients are in Edmonton, DCS also has clients in Red Deer, Calgary, Lethbridge, Regina, Saskatoon and even as far away as Charlottetown and Ann Arbour Michigan.

What Are The Costs Of CANFIT?

It’s often been said that you get what you pay for. DCS offers a fixed monthly contract based on average number of hours and visits. We try to keep costs low by helping groups of similar agencies at a time, but it’s not free. Contracts range between $250 - $700 / month. We’ve never turned away a client because of lack of funds, if effort and co-operation is present (something which makes our company unique). We also require your time in the form of regular meetings, and testing of new features.

For those of you looking for a very simple solution, and a transfer of HOMES data into a format which you can use, we are developing CANFIT Lite which will be licensed for $50/month, with a $75/hr set up fee for importing data from CORI.

What Are The Next Steps?

Contact Us! Fill out the attached pdf document and send it back to us so that we can learn more about your requirements. Our fax number is 1-866-421-4329. If you have any questions about our company, or CANFIT, feel free to contact Lynn Crawford, Cathie Black, or Raj Lamba at 1-800-979-4525. We’ve become quite busy these days, but promise to get back to you on a first come first serve basis. We hope to hear from you soon!

Sincerely,


Raja S. Lamba, President
Dignity Computer Solutions
220, 9939 Jasper Avenue
Edmonton, Alberta T5J 2X4
Phone: (780) 429-4525
Toll Free: 1-800-979-4525
Fax: 1-866-421-4329