Mentes vzw supports organizers of child care services, such as daycare centers, after-school care programs, and so on. They not only provide advice and assistance in educational matters but also offer organizational support. The network organization was looking for an administrative application to document everything centrally—essentially, a CRM for nonprofits or support networks, but without the overhead of typical sales processes that often form the basis of traditional CRM software. The Microsoft Power Platform offered exactly the flexibility they were looking for, so they asked Alistar, a Power Apps specialist, to design and build the application.
Across Organizations
“Because Mentes vzw is a network organization—and therefore requires collaboration across organizational boundaries—it is extremely important that this be done in a consistent manner. There are many different roles within Mentes vzw, so we use our CRM app, Microsoft Teams and SharePoint ”Mainly to exchange information within the nonprofit and to work together on projects or cases," says Evelien Louwyck, who works as a thematic support specialist at Unizo, a partner of Mentes vzw.
The purpose of the Power App The main focus was on creating a shared database and standardized procedures so that the 20 organizations could collaborate in a uniform manner. For employees, this means less administrative work, which frees up more time for providing support in the field; it also makes it easier to share certain insights, allowing for more targeted action when necessary.
The most important features in the Power App are therefore managing contacts, creating visit reports, tracking cases, and generating or retrieving reports. The CRM app from Mentes vzw is primarily a one-way system, in which employees record reports of interactions with daycare centers for internal use. “For now, we also do not share any information from our systems with the sector itself,” Evelien continues. “It is something we’re looking into, so that the daycare centers can request the information we have about them,” explains Mieke Jacomen, regional support specialist for Karel De Grote Hogeschool, also a partner of Mentes vzw.
Thanks to the Power App, anyone can share information and build on what someone else has already done
Mieke Jacomen – Regional Support Specialist
Then versus Now
“We used to just create our visit reports in a standard Word document. That was really annoying because, for example, the text boxes would keep shifting around,” Mieke recalls. “Back then, you also couldn’t go back in time. Thanks to our Power App, we can do just that—you can see what happened during the first, second, third, … contact moments and build on that.”
The Power App also enables the various roles within Mentes vzw to collaborate more effectively. Regional support staff, for example, work with the daycare centers to identify areas for improvement, while the educational coaches primarily provide guidance on the job and help find solutions to educational challenges. The thematic support staff, in turn, provide assistance from the office by managing the information desk and offering support on business-related topics such as bookkeeping, articles of incorporation, finances, and more. Thanks to the Power App, all these individuals can exchange information and build on the work others have already done.
For Evelien, too, this is a huge benefit: “Suppose a facility is having financial problems—that’s not Mieke’s area of expertise, since she’s a regional support specialist. She can then call on me, as a thematic support specialist, to handle this, and I can review the situation in the Power App, report on it, log my work hours, and type up visit reports—which keeps Mieke informed of the situation. So there’s a lot of additional information available in the files in our CRM.”
When everything is neatly recorded and organized in the CRM app, it turns out to be very informative as well. “Everything is consolidated, which gives you a clear overview of specific issues and allows you to quickly gain new insights. There have been several instances where we’ve adjusted our actions based on the records. You can learn a lot from good record-keeping, so I’m very happy with it,” says Mieke.
Program with Alistar
In addition to Evelien and Mieke, several colleagues were involved in the development of the Power App. It began with an extensive analysis, conducted in collaboration with Alistar. These were intensive sessions during which Mentes vzw had to list everything they needed. Once that was clear, Alistar presented a concrete proposal. This proposal was repeatedly reviewed by various internal working groups to arrive at a test version. Subsequently, the necessary adjustments were made, and training sessions could begin, along with the import of all data.
“We had expected it to be somewhat complicated, since we still needed to develop a shared vision. With 20 different organizations, that wasn’t easy to streamline. Fortunately, Alistar was very patient with us,” Evelien jokes. Mieke agrees: “It was remarkable to see how quickly the Alistar consultant got up to speed with our world. It’s a sector he’s not familiar with, but he quickly gained a clear understanding of how Mentes vzw works. That made the back-and-forth a lot more enjoyable.”
And yet, working with the Power App isn’t second nature to everyone, because it’s a completely different way of working. Many employees used to work with Excel and Word, and change can sometimes be difficult. “We’re confident that most colleagues will recognize the benefits of the Power App by the end of the year. That’s when the reports will be generated, and we’ll no longer have to search for all the information in separate documents—we’ll simply be able to pull all the information from our CRM. That will save us a lot of time.”
“It was amazing to see how quickly Alistar adapted to our way of life”
Expansion
The success of Power Apps is also evident in the additional features that were recently developed and will go live soon—this time for the educational coaches. Mieke helped develop this feature: “The educational coaches work alongside the staff at the daycare centers and, from that position, help find solutions. Their job responsibilities are different, so they need to be able to report in a different way. However, they do visit the same daycare centers as the regional support staff, and they also work on the same case files. So it was important to define different roles and permissions so that everyone can truly work in the same central database. As an organization, we’re constantly evolving, so our CRM has to evolve with us. Optimizing our technology is an ongoing process.”
Challenges in the Industry
With the implementation of the Power App, the organization is working hard to optimize internal processes. This is absolutely necessary, because the more Mentes vzw can reduce its own workload, the more time it will have to provide support to a sector that is under severe pressure in our country. According to Evelien, the challenges in child care are threefold: “First and foremost, there is a significant difference in funding, which makes it difficult for our target group to hire additional staff. Everyone is expected to offer the same services, but some have to do so with far fewer resources. Second, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to provide high-quality care when the government expects there to be only one caregiver for every 8 to 9 children. Finally, the qualification requirements for the sector are low, which means people can start working without any training. But that creates a false impression, because in reality it’s a really demanding job and you do need to be capable of a great deal.” Mieke adds: “The result of these issues is a dire shortage of staff. The government does want to reduce the number of children per caregiver, but there are no resources. The sector is definitely under pressure, and there’s a high turnover rate. It’s a shame because these people do wonderful work, but they absolutely deserve more recognition.”
