The European Social Network (ESN), based in Brighton, has selected MTL to implement and support their new CRM solution based on their depth of experience in the not-for-profit sector (26 years) and high level of flexibility and innovation to meet ESN’s needs in the short and long term.

ESN, established since 1998, focuses on bringing together people who are key to the design and delivery of local public social services across Europe to learn from each other and contribute their experience and expertise to building effective social policy and practice. ESN strongly believes in the long-established values of social work: listening to service users, responding to their needs and respecting their personal dignity at all times. Together with their members, ESN is determined to provide quality public social services to all and especially to help improve the lives of the most vulnerable in our societies across Europe.

Maria Capozzi, Conference Manager at ESN, said: “We have grown significantly in recent years and it is essential that we have a system in place that will accommodate our future growth and diversity in all of our activities. It is crucial for us to be able to use one fully integrated database and we shall now be able to streamline many of our business processes and open up web-based functionality to many of our contacts as well.”

During recent years ESN has been using a number of different systems including several Access databases and spreadsheets. This meant that there was an increasing amount of duplication of work with certain information only being available in different systems. Tasks were taking far longer than they needed to and reporting was inaccurate.

One of the initial key drivers for change was the need to implement a new database to handle the annual conference which is ESN’s flagship event - the next one being held in Barcelona in June 2010. This event attracts 400+ delegates from over 30 different countries and is promoted in 5 main European languages. It is very important that delegates can register and pay on line using their own language for their individual web-based booking forms. The system will also meet all ESN’s requirements for attracting new members through more effective contact management, events/workshops, marketing/surveys, selective bulk emailing, publications/newsletters etc – opening up functionality for all contacts on the internet in a secure and controlled manner, whenever needed.

Maria added “We are looking forward to working with the team at MTL. We are comfortable with their flexible and open approach and are keen to benefit from their experience in working with similar organisations – many of these having very similar aims and objectives to ourselves.”

European Social Network