Solution to ailing IT was right up charity's street

30/09/08

By Mark Richardson - Manchester Evening News

FOR voluntary sector organisations, upgrading an ageing IT network can represent a major financial hurdle.

But for one Manchester city centre charity, with the help of the Charity Technology Exchange (CTX) and Microsoft, it was surprisingly easy.

The 42nd Street charity has been working since 1980 with young people across Greater Manchester who suffer from different mental health issues, providing a range of support services.

Like all charities, 42nd Street faces a constant struggle to raise the money it needs to continue providing services, and when its ageing IT network began to fail, those services were put at risk.

Head of operations Ian Trafford said: "Our existing network was crumbling, and failing repeatedly. It just wasn't able to handle the demands we were making on it. The hardware and the software were essentially obsolete."

The charity employs 30 healthcare professionals and turns over just under a £1m a year, and its ability to provide services was being severely hampered by an office system that was unreliable.

Ian added: "We were haemorrhaging money trying to get it fixed and, on top of that, we didn't have the money to put in place a new network."

Raising the cash to install a new network initially seemed to be an insurmountable problem, due to the way that the charity is funded, with nearly all its money directly tied to a service.

"We have contracts with local authorities and the NHS, and we have funding from charitable trusts, but most of that is committed in terms of restricted expenditure. So there is very little slack to pay for things like IT," said Ian.

While brooding over the problem, and becoming increasingly frustrated by the charity's system, Ian searched the web, found the Charity Technology Exchange and put in an application for the hardware, software and licences 42nd Street needed.

"The process was extremely straightforward for us and mostly involved validating that we are a registered charity," said Ian. Within three months, 42nd Street had an up-to-date network, with a Cisco router, wireless access point and 48-port Ethernet switch, MS Small Business Server with user client add-on packs, MS Windows Pro Upgrade, Publisher 2007 and Office Professional Plus 2007.

"For the most part it's been the difference between the server almost never going down, and the server going down three times a week," says Ian.

"Also with moving to a more up-to-date operating system, and the Windows Small Business Server pack, the functionality you can achieve is of a much higher quality."

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