PFA

Prison Fellowship Albania

Prison Fellowship Albania is an Albanian non-profit organisation that aims to provide opportunities for prisoners and ex-prisoners, their children and their families to break the spiral of poverty and impossibility.
They actively work to care for prisoners, reintegrate ex-prisoners, restore relationships and provide training in almost all prisons.

The Albanian foundation makes it possible for thousands of prisoners to receive annual visits and for hundreds of children and their families to receive monthly support through specific programmes. They also provide personal assistance, such as education, home repairs and medical care.
 

What was the aim of your implementation?

Prison Fellowship Albania provides opportunities for prisoners and ex-prisoners, their children and their families to break the spiral of poverty and impossibility. They actively work to care for prisoners, reintegrate ex-prisoners, restore relationships and provide training in almost all prisons.|

PFA wanted 1 central place to manage all its contacts, projects and events instead of all kinds of separate Excel sheets.

 

The approach and progress of the project

As PFA is a small organisation funded entirely through donations and grants, the budget was leading. The implementation was done in small, manageable steps, with CiviCooP only taking care of the highly necessary things like installing the (test) environment, providing basic CiviCRM training and configuration based on 'User stories'. The organisation's employees tested and completed the configuration themselves.
 

What has been CiviCooP's role: before, during and after implementation?

The nice thing about working with CiviCooP is that they were very aware of our financial scope and often thought along with us about what was and was not feasible within our budget. In addition, it was especially nice to work together because of their experience and knowledge of CiviCRM. Thanks to their knowledge and advice, we gradually set up the application to our needs. This guidance saved us a lot of time and money.
 

 

What role does CiviCRM play now?

Meanwhile, CiviCRM has become indispensable at PFA. It is used to manage contacts and their relationships. They also use CiviEvent for their programmes, registering attendees, trainers and others to the specific events. By this they control all the specific events and have insight into what relationships the participants have with others and whether they are also participating in other programmes and events. 

Soon, they will expand the functions to include CiviCase based on their own case management process. That way, PFA will have a quick and clear picture of what is going on around their contacts.