Etherios and salesforce.com help IAVA grow its membership

When IAVA (Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America) needed a better way to manage membership and benefits, it recruited Etherios to help. The consulting firm, which is known for its complex Salesforce implementations, deployed a custom Salesforce CRM solution to help IAVA manage growth. Etherios also helped build a unique application—called The Rucksack—that has made it possible for IAVA to distribute thousands of veteran benefits and helped IAVA grow its membership by over 50% in just 5 months.
 

IAVA, Etherios, and salesforce.com join forces

IAVA was founded in 2004 to help improve the lives of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The organization quickly became a leading resource provider, but outgrew its systems along the way. According to Daniel Atwood, IAVA’s director of digital engagement, “At the beginning, we were tracking membership information in our email software and using Excel to track press contacts, so the need for something better quickly became obvious.”

IAVA was introduced to Etherios by a technology consultant—Sam Dorman—who led and managed the system transition. Etherios, founded by two former salesforce.com technical architects, specializes in custom Force.com deployments and complex integrations. Atwood explains, “We needed a system that could scale with the organization as we experienced rapid growth, and we needed a platform that could serve as the foundation for a robust digital infrastructure. Salesforce gave us just that, and Etherios brought the technical expertise and strategic guidance necessary to ensure the solution mapped as effectively as possible to our goals.”

The new system needed to include workflows to ensure prospective members demonstrate proof of service, and that the information is correctly uploaded, verified, and stored. It also needed to integrate with an existing fundraising and volunteer recruitment solution. By consolidating donor and collection information, IAVA hoped to more effectively target campaigns and improve reporting.

The mission: develop a new application in just 6 weeks

Not long after the new CRM system was deployed, IAVA partnered with MillerCoors to give $1 million in experiences—free tickets to concerts, trips and sporting events—to Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. The program was set to kick off on July 4. IAVA needed a scalable system for managing these rewards and distributing them to its members, but had only six weeks to get it up and running.

Katie VanLangen, IAVA’s Director of Strategic Partnerships explains, “Miller actually offered to build one for us, which was tempting. But we didn’t want to silo the information in a separate system. We needed an app that would integrate with our existing CRM and scale effectively. We understood that, if done right, this could be game changing; it could be the foundation for all of our future partnerships and veteran interactions.”

Etherios worked with Sam Dorman and a design agency (Biro Creative), to develop the new Rucksack application. It was completed in just 5 weeks by 2 consultants and a developer. According to Michael Dannenfeldt, Etherios co-founder and CEO, it couldn’t have been done with any other platform. Dannenfeldt explains, “Force.com removes infrastructure hurdles, so we can go straight to the business value our clients are trying to achieve. We can focus on driving value immediately rather than distracting the conversation with IT- and infrastructure-related issues.”

Phenomenal success with Force.com

The Rucksack uses a combination of Force.com code (Apex), custom objects, Siteforce, and Force.com pages (Visualforce). Visitors to IAVA’s website can search by zip code to find available rewards, and apply for the ones that interest them. The system is supported by complex workflows that account for giveaway parameters including age and geography. Wait lists can be generated for benefits that reach a predetermined limit. Etherios also built in Web APIs to support an upcoming iPhone version.

The application launched in July 2010 and easily scaled to process 10,000 requests in 1 week for free suits offered by J.C. Penney and JOE by Joseph Abboud. To date, it has been used to distribute more than 12,000 individual rewards, and more than 40 additional corporate sponsors have applied to participate. The Rucksack has also been an extremely effective recruitment tool—IAVA membership grew by 54% within the first 5 months.

As with all of Etherios’s deployments, collaborating with salesforce.com is a key part of the project’s success. “When we work with new features or with large volumes of data, we stay in close contact with salesforce.com engineers to make sure we optimize every implementation,” says Dannenfeldt. “Salesforce.com provides the resources we need to make our customers successful.”

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