Case Studies

RDA Equestrian Therapy Centre provides therapeutic horse related activities for children and adults with physical, mental, cognitive, social or behavioural needs. This includes horse riding, horsemanship and vocational skills. Clients range in age from 3 to 65.

"We now have a digital work environment that effectively supports the demands of our busy tutors and the growing sophistication of our learners and their needs.  A shortage of office space and computers is also a thing of the past." Jane Gilmour, Manager, Waitakere Adult Literacy.

"Microsoft Office has empowered students with a sense of inclusion in society and helped them to break out of seclusion and spark their interest in learning." says Kaveh Farbeh-Tabrizi, IT Administrator/Tutor

As you would expect from any radio station, technology and IT form the backbone of our operation. Given that we are a Charitable organisation, our budgets are... limited! Any maintenance or upgrade funds are usual directed to broadcast equipment, and as such, staff computers have been neglected.

We encountered an increasing number of issues with our “redundant” copies of Microsoft office, from outdated versions of publisher through to the inability to open .docx files (an issue when you receive many press releases every day!)

As a result of the TechSoup discounts, we could – almost effortlessly – upgrade our staff machines, offering all staff a “level playing field” for document creation and – increasingly important – contact sharing.

Founded more than thirty years ago, we now have more than 60 staff members and almost 200 families in our service at any one time. That makes for lots of report writing, searching the internet for the best and most up-to-date professional information, and of course communication between professionals and between therapists and families through e-mail.

To make it all work, we needed an efficient server that therapists can log into and work on their reports, sharing drafts and contributing to a final integrated document. We also needed the individual computers upgraded to run on the same operating system using the much more efficient 2010 Microsoft Office suite. 

 

"We are really delighted with the software and are immensely grateful to Microsoft for making this happen for our organisation."

Pam Thomas, Office Administrator, RDA Christchurch

The Disability Resource Centre (H.B) Trust provides overall Governance to Home Support, Network Personnel and Turning Point – who each have their own Mission Statement relative to their specialist area and the services they provide to the Hawkes Bay and/or Central Hawkes Bay Community.

"Not only have we been able to obtain the latest Microsoft software as a donation but, obtaining donated software through TechSoup has enabled us to implement an IT upgrading planning process which we would not have been able to do otherwise. Because of TechSoup New Zealand and the generosity of Microsoft we are covering all bases."

“Voluntary and community organisations are fundamental to society because they are major stakeholders in building social capital that underpins healthy and well functioning communities.” says Bishop’s Action Foundation CEO Simon Cayley.

“Yet many of these organisations are small and possess limited resources when measured against the challenges and critical issues they address, and this raises issues of the capacity of organisations to operate effectively. As a capacity builder within the region, we welcome the arrival of Techsoup in New Zealand; it has made a significant difference for our ICT capability and is great news for groups within our region too.”

Keeping in touch and staying up to date is clearly a vital ingredient to the success of NZ Federation of Family Budgeting Services and the TechSoup programme in conjunction with Microsoft® has helped ensure this is the case.

“We were finding that we were starting to receive documents we could not open as our software was so out of date, so it is great we now have Office Professional” says Sally Bray the Office Manager. “This was the first time we have dealt with TechSoup to source donated products, I found them to be efficient and the products were received in a timely manner.”

It takes a world class system to help create world class athletes and every part of that system, right down to the IT, helps create New Zealanders who can win. And when New Zealander’s are winning on the world stage it helps create a sense of national pride and sends out a positive and healthy message.
The administration of our scholarships has become increasingly complex. Automating processes has enabled us to cope with such things as the large number of payments being made to institutions and athletes and the uploading of online reports by athletes that gauge their progress. Other automated or electronic processes adopted have strengthened interaction between the Academy of Sport in the South Island with the Academy of Sport in the North Island.