NOVA - Leading the Way to Recovery

These are unsteadying times for all nonprofit organizations. Traditional funding sources have dried up or have greatly diminished. NOVA Inc., a registered 501 (c) (3) in existence since 1979, operates at three geographically separate locations in the Phoenix, Arizona area.

NOVA Safe Haven serves severely mentally ill homeless men and women. NOVA C.A.R.E.S. assists and counsels people with psychological and emotional illnesses. Maverick House is a residential treatment facility for those with chemical dependency issues.

As a direct result of NOVA’s use of Microsoft technologies and despite the economic downturn, NOVA has been able to maintain assistance provided to the number of people in need within our community at our previously achieved peak level of 5200 each year without cutting necessary services.

Over the many years NOVA has served this community we have experienced times both good and bad, but we have not seen those as financially troubling as experienced today. If there is an upside in having to conduct business during an era of mandated stringent fiscal conservancy, it is the myriad of internal benefits NOVA has received due to greater reliance upon Microsoft technologies, especially those we were fortunate enough to secure at a substantial cost savings via TechSoup.org. NOVA, like so many other nonprofit agencies are the beneficiaries of Microsoft’s generosity.

Microsoft technologies have assisted NOVA to cost cut administratively and to apportion greater financial resources toward direct client services. It has played a major role by streamlining linkages between all three locations, enabling us to coordinate efforts to integrate and centralize efforts to better serve the community. It has provided the means to enhance public awareness of NOVA’s role of uplifting those who exist at the bottom rung of society’s ladder.

We consistently use a wide variety of Microsoft technologies. They have provided extensive positive impact in the way we now conduct business both internally and in our ever-increasing need to promote and position our organization to the public. The resultant outcome is that NOVA has become a more efficient, effective organization. The legacy and lessons provided by Microsoft will endure and benefit NOVA, the community, and those we serve, beyond the climate of this current economic downturn.

I site just some of the uses of Microsoft technologies…

We have trained our Peer Support personnel to utilize Microsoft Office Word to directly input extensive notes into State required client data retrieval information files, a huge time saving process. Our billing department makes full use of Access, Excel and Word in recording client transactions and as a data base. Outlook is used for both inner and inter office communications, as well as for appointment scheduling and resource sharing. NOVA’s counseling staff utilizes Outlook to research developments within their specific fields of endeavor and to keep abreast of ever-changing methods of client treatment. Our Chief Operating officer and financial management personnel utilize Excel as its database, to initiate queries and perform differential comparisons that are vital in evaluating our cost to performance ratio. They use Word to create NOVA’s annual reports and in the creation of forms needed for State mandated reports. Microsoft Defender is used by our IT department as a scanning tool to detect viruses. Publisher has been extensively utilized in the production of marketing materials, internal newsletters and for the creation of event notices sent to our supporters. PowerPoint has helped create a dramatic, moving presentation that encapsulates and captures NOVA’s mission. It is utilized by our Fundraising Personnel, our Community Outreach Team and has been shown at symposiums, events and health fairs in aid of those we serve (a sample of this multimedia PowerPoint presentation is enclosed).

We are both grateful and appreciative for the support provided by Microsoft…for the major positive impact the use of Microsoft technologies has had in the way we conduct our operation and the enduring technological savvy we have developed.

Because of our exposure and use of Microsoft technologies, NOVA is traveling upon a new super-highway, permitting advantages that have shifted our operational business dynamic paradigm in a most positive manner.