How Northern Beaches Women’s Shelter Transformed Fundraising with SupporterHub

Founded in 2010, Northern Beaches Women’s Shelter provides crisis accommodation and support for women and children escaping domestic violence, homelessness, and crisis. Their work helps vulnerable women and families move toward safety and independence. As the organisation grew, so did the need for better systems to support the people behind that mission.

“Before SupporterHub, one of our biggest challenges was having supporter and donor information stored in multiple places, which made it difficult to keep everything up to date and easy to access. This meant staff spent too much time on manual processes, searching for information, and trying to ensure records were accurate. It also made it harder to track engagement properly and build strong, ongoing relationships with our supporters.”

As Northern Beaches Women’s Shelter grew, it became clear that a centralised CRM was no longer optional. They needed something that could bring everything together and help them work more efficiently and strategically, and they needed it to actually understand how charities operate.

“We chose SupporterHub because it was specifically designed for charities, so it already had the functions we needed. It understood the way not-for-profits work and offered a more suitable fit for our fundraising, donor management and reporting needs than more generic systems.”

The setup and onboarding process was smooth and straightforward. Clear tutorials and a step-by-step approach meant the team could get started quickly, and they also connected with other shelters in their network who were also using SupporterHub, giving them a valuable opportunity to learn alongside peers who understood their context.

“The tutorials were very clear, and the systematic step-by-step approach made it easy for us to get started quickly and efficiently. Like all systems, it did take a little time to adapt, but by working together as a team and using SupporterHub’s guidance when needed, we were able to build confidence and use it effectively.”

The ongoing support from the SupporterHub team also made a real difference, particularly for someone carrying the responsibility of being the primary person managing the system within the organisation.

“When you are the only person in an organisation familiar with the system, it can feel quite daunting, so having that ongoing guidance made a real difference for Northern Beaches Women’s Shelter.”

Since implementing SupporterHub, the shelter has one central place to manage all donor and supporter information. Communication with large groups of supporters is faster and more consistent, records are more accurate, and the team has better insight into supporter engagement and fundraising activity.

The standout result has come from peer-to-peer fundraising. By enabling community members and third-party fundraisers to create their own professional fundraising pages, the shelter has significantly expanded its reach and its results.

“Peer-to-peer fundraising has been a major success for us in the past 12 months, enabling community members and third-party fundraisers to create professional fundraising pages for their events. This has helped expand our reach, grow our supporter database, and build stronger community engagement. We had a goal of $1K but have raised $26K in 12 months. “

Looking ahead, the team plans to explore SupporterHub’s Automated Journeys feature and go deeper into reporting to further enhance their fundraising and supporter engagement throughout the year.

“We have also appreciated that SupporterHub has listened to our feedback and implemented functions to better suit our needs.”

When asked whether they would recommend SupporterHub to other charities, there was no hesitation.

“Yes, I would recommend SupporterHub to other charities because it is designed specifically for the not-for-profit sector and has the functions charities need to manage supporters, fundraising and communications effectively. In fact, I have already recommended it to a friend who works for the charity Australian Football, and she has also had a positive experience.”

“Thank you to the SupporterHub team for your ongoing support. We look forward to exploring Journeys and reporting more deeply this year to further enhance our fundraising, supporter engagement and overall use of the system.”