From Eight Platforms to One: Unifying Fundraising and Events at Back on My Feet

Overview

Back on My Feet (BoMF) uses running to help people experiencing homelessness and addiction transform their lives. As BoMF grew across 14 cities, its fundraising technology struggled to keep pace. Staff managed fundraising and event programs across eight disconnected platforms, relied on manual Salesforce processes, and lacked a unified, user-friendly experience that reflected the Back on My Feet brand.

With haku, they were able to change all of that. BoMF went from eight disconnected systems to one unified platform, giving the team the tools to manage fundraising, events, and supporter engagement in one place. The result was less manual work, a better experience for staff and supporters, and the operational capacity to support the organization's largest marathon fundraising year yet.

‍

The Challenge

‍Before haku, Back on My Feet relied on eight different platforms to manage fundraising, events, email, ticketing, and donor data. None of the systems were designed to work together, forcing staff to constantly switch between tools, manually transfer data, and work around disconnected processes just to keep fundraising programs running smoothly.

Corey Tanner, Director of Partnerships at Back on My Feet, described the previous peer-to-peer fundraising platform as "not a very user-friendly platform." Fundraisers regularly encountered questions and technical issues while creating fundraising pages or accepting donations, leaving staff to spend valuable time providing support instead of helping participants reach their fundraising goals. Frequent platform glitches and limited flexibility also meant the team was often creating manual workarounds rather than focusing on growing their fundraising programs.

Some of the biggest challenges included:

• Supporters struggled with the fundraising experience, resulting in more support requests and creating unnecessary barriers to fundraising.
• Limited branding and customization made it difficult to create fundraising pages that reflected Back on My Feet's mission and delivered a consistent supporter experience.
• Every online donation had to be manually entered into Salesforce, consuming roughly 5 hours each week across multiple teams that could have been spent on fundraising and donor engagement.
• Critical data lived across eight disconnected systems, forcing staff to reconcile information by hand, increasing administrative work, and making it harder to get a complete view of fundraising performance.
• Offline donations, company matches, and mailed checks required separate manual workflows, adding another 10 hours of administrative work each month before gifts could be accurately tracked.
• Staff had to train supporters across multiple platforms, spending time explaining different systems instead of coaching fundraisers and building stronger donor relationships.

Back on My Feet wanted a true partner, not just another vendor that could replace a single tool or even a collection of tools. They needed a platform that could simplify their operations, provide a complete view of the supporters, reduce manual entries, and do all of that while creating a better experience for fundraisers, supporters, and staff.

The Solution

‍In the first week of their partnership with haku, Back on My Feet was able to bring its event management and fundraising needs into one platform.

Today, the BoMF team now has a connected platform that supports both its internal team and its fundraising community. Supporters have a smoother fundraising experience, and staff can confidently build, market, and manage events more easily. Now they are able to put more time into their mission and give their supporters the tools they need to succeed. 

For Back on My Feet, the transition to haku also helped reduce manual work and make event setup more consistent. The Salesforce integration was especially valuable for the development team, which had previously spent significant time entering donation information and searching in multiple places for donor data. ‍

Corey Tanner, Director of Partnerships at Back on My Feet, explained:

“One of the biggest benefits of haku has been its direct Salesforce integration. It has eliminated a lot of manual work and frustration for us. We used to spend hours entering donations into Salesforce because our previous platform couldn’t connect as well. Now we spend much less time on it, and we can use that time to focus on other priorities.” 

The platform also gave the team more flexibility to create fundraising and event experiences that reflected the Back on My Feet brand. Customizable pages, event cloning, built-in email templates, and event templates made it possible to build repeat events and communications without recreating each element from scratch. haku  also helped the team manage offline donations, including checks, company matches, and other gifts received outside the platform. Back on My Feet has even reported that their supporters and fundraisers alike have expressed that the experience became more polished, intuitive, and helpful after the switch to haku.

Support was especially important because Back on My Feet was moving quickly, launching multiple events on tight timelines while learning a new platform. The team highlighted that haku equipped them with the training needed to use the platform confidently, while also being available for additional operational support when needed. ‍

Tanner noted:

‍“haku’s customer service team is the best I have experienced of any third-party vendor ever, starting with the account executive and going all the way through to their customer experience team.”‍

That flexibility helped the team balance learning the system with getting work done under deadline, Tanner continued.

‍“They understood we had deadlines. There were some things I wanted to learn, and there were some things where I just needed help getting it done. The haku team was there for me and my colleagues when I needed them, in the way I needed their support.”

Results

‍The Back on My Feet team is already seeing meaningful operational improvements, better fundraising experiences, and a powerful relationship built on support, trust, and expertise with the haku team.

Key outcomes include:

Operational Efficiency

• Eight separate platforms consolidated into one
• 5 hours/week saved by eliminating manual Salesforce donation entry
• 10 hours/month saved through streamlined offline donation management

Financial Impact

• Supported the BoMF’s largest marathon fundraising year yet

Supporter Experience

• More intuitive fundraising experience, based on supporter feedback
• Staff can spend more time supporting fundraisers instead of managing technology

Partnership & Implementation

• Smooth transition with minimal disruption to staff and supporters
• Successful change management experience and team adoption

What could your team achieve with one unified platform?

See how haku helps organizations simplify fundraising and events, eliminate manual work, and spend more time focused on their mission. Talk to our team today!