MISSION POSSIBLE:

NETSUITE AIDS NONPROFIT

INNOVATION AND IMPACT

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Mission Possible: NetSuite Aids Nonprofit Innovation and Impact 1

 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

These are challenging times for nonprofit organizations. Even as The bottom line: NetSuite helps nonprofit organizations of all
demand for their services grows, many contend with limited staff sizes and types reduce costs, improve performance and achieve
resources, increased competition for funding and shoestring operational excellence so they can focus on their missions, not
budgets. To survive and succeed in the long term, nonprofits on managing IT complexity.
are finding innovative ways to maximize resources and grow
revenues, make better use of volunteers, strengthen connections
with existing donors, solicit new supporters and develop
additional sources of revenue.

Although much of the focus is on bringing in more money—and Nonprofits are navigating a time of
with good reason—nonprofits cannot ignore the bottom line.
immense need and change, while
Careful management, scrutiny and reporting on how dollars
are spent is vital to demonstrate proper stewardship and build pursuing ways to build long-term
a sustainable nonprofit organization that delivers meaningful,
long-term impact.
sustainability and viability.
High-impact nonprofit organizations have learned that the Source: Nonprofit Finance Fund
effective use of business technologies has a major influence 2015 State of the Nonprofit Sector Survey
on their ability to manage costs, grow resources and achieve
social impact. And many nonprofits have discovered that
the cloud-based solutions offered by NetSuite provide the
ideal capabilities for handling their diverse and demanding
requirements.

With NetSuite, nonprofit organizations gain capabilities that

help build sustainability: align budgets to the true cost of
mission delivery, ensure accurate financials, gain a holistic and
comprehensive view of financial operations and proactively
monitor performance to expand impact.

Mission Possible: NetSuite Aids Nonprofit Innovation and Impact 2

 2 NONPROFITS STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE IN AN
INCREASINGLY COMPLEX WORLD

By delivering on their core missions, nonprofit organizations To successfully meet these expectations and to document their
help address thousands of pressing social needs. But when it return on mission, nonprofits require a purpose-built solution
comes to their own operations, nonprofits have needs of their that provides a single shared view of the fiscal health and
own. Never easy, life for nonprofits has become much more mission of the organization.
difficult in today’s real-time, always-connected world. Consider
just a few of the challenges nonprofits face:

• Donors have become more cautious in their contributions,

and they are more insistent in their demands for financial
transparency and hard metrics that demonstrate mission
outcomes.
By deploying NetSuite OneWorld,
• Nonprofits must meet regulatory and accounting
we are gaining much-needed
demands that often exceed those faced by for-profit standardization, accountability
organizations. For example, they must carefully track and
manage their funds, including the proper dispersal of—
and transparency across our entire
and reporting about—restricted donations that must be organization so we can more
applied only for their intended purpose.
effectively budget and plan.
• The business models of nonprofits can be exceptionally
complex. Revenue, for example, may come from — Ashoka
contributions, membership dues, government grants,
product sales or some combination of these and other
sources.

• The rise of social media and other technologies has given

people new ways to compare and directly engage with
these organizations.
Read More

Mission Possible: NetSuite Aids Nonprofit Innovation and Impact 3

 3 PATCHWORK SOLUTIONS SABOTAGE
OPERATIONS AND MISSIONS

Far too many nonprofits still run their operations on patchwork • Error-prone financial and operational data, combined
solutions using Excel spreadsheets, basic accounting packages with the inability to produce comprehensive, real-time
and rudimentary—if any—constituent and sales management reports, erodes donor confidence and contribution levels.
software.
• Managing and integrating complex and disjointed
The consequences of using such fragmented software IT systems forces nonprofits to expend unacceptable
foundations can be dire: percentages of their budgets on internal operations,
damaging mission effectiveness and stewardship.
• The lack of common and accurate financial data—a “single
source of truth”—prevents nonprofits from understanding
the true costs of their operations, undermining their efforts
to budget and plan intelligently.

NetSuite’s unified system means

we have a single source of
information that provides us with
real-time data on our finances and
Track and Monitor Every
the children we serve. Transaction from Funding
Through Program Delivery in
— Virlanie Foundation Real Time

Return on
Mission
Source: NetSuite
Read More

Mission Possible: NetSuite Aids Nonprofit Innovation and Impact 4

 4 NONPROFITS FIND AN
ALLY IN NETSUITE

NetSuite, a pioneer in cloud computing, has long been • A powerful and flexible cloud platform delivers long-
recognized as a committed partner to the entire nonprofit term cost of ownership benefits, eliminates the expense
community. The company’s corporate citizenship arm, of hardware maintenance and upgrade costs, and always
NetSuite.org, provides volunteers, mounts initiatives and stays current.
donates software to help amplify the impact of nonprofits
and social enterprises around the world. In addition to these universal requirements, non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) and other nonprofits that operate
NetSuite offers a comprehensive unified cloud-based solution internationally must be able to deal easily and efficiently with
purpose-built to help nonprofit organizations achieve greater
multiple currencies, tax structures, languages and financial
accountability, transparency and efficiency by providing the
consolidation.
following features:
• A single, comprehensive system combines powerful Although daunting, these nonprofit needs have met their match in
financial management capabilities such as fund and grant a solution purpose-built to take them on: NetSuite for Nonprofits.
accounting with core business management solutions—
constituent relationship management (CRM), customer
service, financials, enterprise resource management (ERP),
ecommerce and more.
Our visibility is much better.
• From development and accounting to operations and NetSuite makes it easier to make
programming, data is unified to ensure a single version better decisions, and you can see the
of the truth throughout the organization. Meanwhile,
customizable, role-based dashboards provide real-time outcome of decisions faster.
visibility into the nonprofit’s key performance metrics,
mission status and overall fiscal health. — SEMI
• NetSuite delivers full visibility into unified constituent
records and contacts to support the highly personalized
development, engagement and fulfillment processes
needed to build strong relationships with donors and Read More
members, and to increase loyalty and boost fundraising.

Mission Possible: NetSuite Aids Nonprofit Innovation and Impact 5

 5 LINKING THE NONPROFIT
VALUE CHAIN

NetSuite for Nonprofits offers unmatched capabilities to run all aspects of

your nonprofit or social enterprise—all within a single system.

With NetSuite, we now have a

single coordinated effort across
the organization and are able to
make the most of every interaction
with our donors and customers
with a single 360-degree view.
— Foundation Center

Source: NetSuite

Read More

Mission Possible: NetSuite Aids Nonprofit Innovation and Impact 6

 6 NETSUITE FOR NONPROFITS:
A COMPREHENSIVE SOLUTION

Nonprofits can easily customize and configure NetSuite for • Global Business Management: Run your nonprofit around
Nonprofits to address their specific requirements both now and the world from a single platform that supports multiple
as their needs evolve: countries, languages, tax rates and currencies. NetSuite
OneWorld provides global accounting and consolidation,
• Nonprofit Accounting and Reporting: Gain efficiencies
including support for 190 currencies, 20 languages and
with a powerful nonprofit financial management and
automated tax compliance in more than 100 countries.
accounting system tailored to meet the complex needs
of nonprofit organizations. Gain full visibility into your • Constituent Support: Track and consolidate all client,
general ledger and accounts receivable/payable. Manage donor and member interactions—live, online, email—into
and track fund and grant acquisition and dispersal as well integrated records that provide 360-degree visibility and
as program expenses. Create customer charity reports, allow informed and positive interactions with constituents.
including FASB 117 and 118–compliant statements of
• Ecommerce: Sell products, solicit donations, engage
financial position and reports documenting the proper use
supporters in myriad ways and get up and running quickly
of restricted funds.
with the NetSuite ecommerce solution.
• Budgetary Controls: Align budgets to the real cost of
• Broad Range of ERP Functionality: Support a
operations, an essential capability for sustained financial
changing, complex organization with NetSuite by
health. Achieve comprehensive and real-time visibility
connecting nonprofit financials with supply chain,
into the real cost of operations and spend rates and
inventory management, procurement, order and billing
trends. Automate the procure-to-pay process and ensure
management, warehouse and fulfillment, and revenue
compliance by establishing authorizations and approvals,
management.
while also tracking and managing detailed costs
associated with grants and other funds.

• Financial Planning: Equip your nonprofit with powerful

planning, budgeting and forecasting tools to organize
disparate pieces of information and to foster strategic
insights that help ensure financial stability and growth.

Mission Possible: NetSuite Aids Nonprofit Innovation and Impact 7

 7 DELIVERING
TRANSFORMATIONAL RESULTS

NetSuite’s nonprofit customers report striking benefits attributable to their deployment of NetSuite’s solution. A survey of some of
these customers found key performance indicator (KPI) improvements across all of their core operations.

Improved Results from Organizations Like Yours

Mission Possible: NetSuite Aids Nonprofit Innovation and Impact 8

 8 CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORIES

Here’s what just a few of NetSuite’s nonprofit customers have to say:

“NetSuite allows our finance managers to

engage more with our products and systems
as opposed to simply dealing with manual
data entry, processing and reporting.”
— Kiva

“The ability to have all of our country

offices on the single NetSuite system
and do global financial consolidations
has been extremely valuable.”
— Water for People

“NetSuite is helping us keep

our IT costs and complexity
to a minimum—that’s a huge
benefit for us.”
— Mana Nutrition

Copyright © SL Associates, 2016

Mission Possible: NetSuite Aids Nonprofit Innovation and Impact 9