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The Arc Southern Maryland

Banishing tech troubles with the right digital strategy

%
increase in utilization of community development services

With critical gaps in its innovation strategy and technology infrastructure, The Arc Southern Maryland needed to make a change. Trusting in Wipfli’s deep experience in the nonprofit industry, as well as the firm’s digital specialization, the Arc made the investment necessary to transform into one of the most impactful nonprofits in the state.

The Challenge

After the Arc came to Wipfli seeking accounting system support for Microsoft Great Plains, it became clear the nonprofit needed a complete digital transformation.

  • Its homegrown IT infrastructure wasn’t keeping up with its needs.
  • None of its technology tied into its overall strategic plan.
  • It experienced frequent outages that prevented employees from providing much-needed community services.
  • Its security gaps left it vulnerable to attack.

The Solution

An initial information technology maturity assessment revealed the road map the Arc needed to follow to succeed. With Wipfli at its side, it implemented new technology customized to its needs, migrated to the cloud, rolled out new hardware at its residences, improved its security posture, educated staff with security awareness training and deployed Microsoft Power BI to begin using its data in a transformative fashion. The Arc also tapped Wipfli’s managed technology services and fractional virtual chief information officer services to provide strategic advice and tactical support.

There is a sense of ownership in Arc on Wipfli’s side, which is not easy to come by with vendors. I like their competency. I like their agility. They brought us the missing strategic piece, and they knew what the best solutions were.
Hartmuth Csanadi-Schwartz, Director of Operations at The Arc Southern Maryland

The results

With Power BI, the Arc can now understand service utilization against its budget — and it’s been a truly transformational change. In the past two years, it has been able to improve its utilization for community development services from 46% to 75% — a 63% increase. And revenue has increased 45% overall. Additionally, with its improved IT infrastructure, the Arc was able to move to remote work in one day once COVID-19 shutdowns began.

%
growth in revenue
day needed to compile compliance reports, compared to one week for peers.