Introduction
Our Fundraiser provides a nationwide fundraising service to charitable and philanthropic community organisations, including schools, parishes, charities and community groups raising funds for local initiatives.
As the organisation’s fundraising service grew, so too did the administrative demands associated with onboarding new customers. What had initially been a routine task assigned to a team member had evolved into a core part of their role.
Through CeADAR’s EDIH Test Before Invest programme, Our Fundraiser explored how automation could streamline this increasingly time-consuming process, reduce operational risk and free up valuable staff capacity.
The Challenge
Each new customer required the processing of Service Agreements and Bank Details, involving several separate systems: DocuSign, an online IBAN/BIC validation service, Dropbox and Microsoft Excel.
The largely manual process involved extracting and re-entering information, validating bank details, maintaining accurate records, filing documents and following up with customers where information was incomplete or incorrect.
Processing each new customer’s documentation took approximately 60 minutes, with repeated customer follow-ups often adding to the administrative burden.
As customer volumes increased, this process became increasingly difficult to sustain. Beyond the time involved, the organisation identified the accuracy and validation of customer banking information as a particularly important operational risk.
The challenge was not simply to automate individual tasks, but to connect several existing systems into a reliable end-to-end workflow while maintaining appropriate human oversight.
The Solution
CeADAR worked with Our Fundraiser to design and develop an automation prototype through the EDIH Test Before Invest service.
Using the automation platform n8n, CeADAR connected the organisation’s existing DocuSign, bank-validation, Dropbox and Excel processes into a coordinated workflow.
The solution was designed to automatically retrieve completed customer documents, extract and transfer relevant information into Excel trackers, validate submitted bank details through an external service and file completed documents consistently within Dropbox.
The automation also incorporates scheduled processing, reporting and exception handling, with a final human review retained to ensure appropriate oversight.
Rather than requiring Our Fundraiser to replace its existing business systems, the prototype demonstrated how these tools could work together as an integrated process.
Results and Business Impact
The impact reported by Our Fundraiser has been substantial.
Customer documentation processing time has fallen from approximately 60 minutes to just 2 minutes of staff review — a reduction of almost 97%.
By automating repetitive data entry, validation and document filing, the project has delivered several important benefits:
- Significant time savings: approximately 58 minutes of manual effort released per new customer onboarding process.
- Greater operational capacity: an administrative activity that had become a core part of a team member’s role has been substantially reduced, allowing more time for higher-value work.
- Improved data quality: mandatory fields and automated checks help prevent incomplete or incorrect information from progressing through the workflow.
- Reduced banking-data risk: automated IBAN/BIC checks strengthen the validation process and reduce reliance on manual checking.
- More consistent record-keeping: standardised file naming and automated document filing support more reliable records.
Importantly, these improvements have been achieved while retaining human review rather than removing oversight entirely.
Beyond the Prototype: A Shift in Digital Mindset
The project’s impact extends beyond the immediate operational efficiencies.
Before engaging with CeADAR, Our Fundraiser primarily associated automation with familiar Microsoft tools, such as Excel macros and Word mail merges.
The EDIH collaboration introduced the organisation to a broader approach to connecting business systems and automating processes.
Having demonstrated the potential of n8n, Our Fundraiser is now considering its use for additional activities, including customer surveys, contact databases and promotional workflows, alongside tools such as Tally and Canva.
The organisation’s wider engagement with CeADAR has also helped build confidence in adopting digital and AI tools. Its team now uses solutions including Claude, Gemini, SendGrid, Canva and Cloudflare across a range of business activities.
What began as a targeted effort to eliminate a manual administrative bottleneck has contributed to a wider cultural shift towards exploring new technologies and identifying opportunities for innovation.
The Value of Test Before Invest
For Our Fundraiser, a key challenge was understanding how several independent software systems could be brought together into one automated process.
Through the EDIH programme, CeADAR provided the technical guidance and development expertise to test that approach, select an appropriate automation platform and demonstrate its feasibility.
The project illustrates how targeted digital innovation can generate measurable operational improvements while giving SMEs the confidence and technical understanding to explore further opportunities.
From a 60-minute manual process to a two-minute review, Our Fundraiser’s experience demonstrates that digital transformation does not always require replacing existing systems, sometimes the greatest value comes from making them work better together.