Ngāti Whātua builds relationships with 5000+ family members with Dynamics 365.
Meaningful Outcomes
Streamline the gifting process and giving back to family frictionless and fair, in order to support larger goals of educational success and achievement
Grant applications grew from 1,000 in a year to 500 in a week
Created a faster application process for members and the fair distribution of funds
Power BI instantly shows how many applications have been submitted via the grants portal and what stage the applications is at
Objective
Implement a system to accurately map member genealogy. Support the distribution of educational grants with a portal for easier application and management.
Challenge
Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei Whai Maia is the commercial investment company looking after the economic returns and well-being of the Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei whānau, a Māori iwi originating from the Auckland region. They uphold the vision to soar and fly like the Kāhupōkere by helping their iwi achieve high levels of education.
Ngāti Whātua’s tribal development arm is responsible for the facilitation of educational grants to its members. However, disparate sources, duplicated information, and no true member record made tracing genealogy within the iwi difficult. Unclear information about genealogy affected the distribution of educational funds. Further, the grants application process was paper-based and time-consuming for staff to manage. Members would have to download, print, fill-out and mail-in grant applications which limited accessibility. The grants that were meant to be a gift from the iwi, felt painful and weren't being utilised by the community as a result.
Ngāti Whātua required a technological solution to track and connect their global village of over 5,000 members. The CRM solution needed to streamline the gifting process and make giving back to Ngāti Whātua’s iwi frictionless and fair, in order to support larger goals of educational success and achievement.
Solution
Magnetism deployed Dynamics CRM and Office 365 into Ngāti Whātua as a base initiative to ensure they had a great launching pad to grow from. It provides a platform for better communication with their members, as they now have a system to log phone calls and emails. Logging conversation allows Ngāti Whātua to provide a personal touch during communications and members feel a greater connection to the family as a result. The Dynamics CRM also enables Ngāti Whātua to map relationships between members from within the system. They can track the genealogy of a certain member and ensure the correct distribution of educational funds. Members have increased engagement with their iwi – helping them to feel more included based on the information known about them. As a collective, members feel closer together, emphasising a sense of belonging and hapori (community). With an ever-growing family spanning across the globe, the ability to build a community outside of New Zealand is an amazing progression for Ngāti Whātua. With Dynamics in place, Magnetism focused on the next objective - the distribution of educational grants. To solve this challenge, Magnetism created a personalised portal that would feed into Dynamics CRM. Ngāti Whātua’s members could now submit educational grant applications completely online. The integration with the CRM meant no missing data and the ability to easily link an applicant within the family system. This resulted in a faster application process for members and the fair distribution of funds.
Integration with Power BI lets Ngāti Whātua instantly understand how many applications have come in via the grants portal, and at what stage the applications are at. They can also see the health of their database and manage their goals in terms of engagement with members or even completeness of record. This meant a quicker application process so funds could be gifted to iwi sooner. It also meant Ngāti Whātua could set goals for their business.
As the grants portal was launched on social media, the online community actively commented, liked and interacted with the post. The portal, and its exposure on social media, saw the global village helping each other put together grant applications. Members became evangelists for the grants process and portal. This showed us the power of Facebook within their member community and solidified the improvement of the grant application process. High levels of engagement inspired Magnetism to create an AI bot that connects Facebook and Dynamics CRM. Members can now proactively be asked to update their profiles and the bot can use AI to identify gaps in the system. Members can also use the bot to find out what stage a grant application is at and who is dealing with it.
Ngāti Whātua continues to embrace technology to improve the connection and education of their whānau. With these solutions in place, they see technology as a key component in their mission of cultural guardianship.
Results
The CRM solution deployed by Magnetism has actively helped Ngāti Whātua connect their globally spread iwi and support their mission for educational achievement. Ngāti Whātua has increased the average amount of contact points and fields per record from 2 to 3 already, with an ultimate goal of 4. The CRM empowers staff, allowing employees to know more about their members and feel more satisfied with the work they are doing for their family.
The amount of grants processed increased from 1,000 in a year to over 500 in one week. The global iwi community was more engaged to apply and faster processing meant the opportunity of receiving a grant was greater. The self-serving portal also gives a significant amount of time back for employees to focus on the things that matter within their organisation.
In time the grant portal has been live, the amount of revenue being allocated to members who are looking to learn and grow has quadrupled. The availability of grants within the community is more well-known and accessible.
“Magnetism in their agile way, using agile methodologies, were able to design and craft a system that was about us. There is so much more potential in what we are going to do. We’ll need Magnetism to help drive us there.”
