Up-to-date IT is a key element of any efficient organisation, yet the voluntary sector has traditionally lagged behind when it comes to technology. Managers are understandably keen to channel resources into core services, keeping the administrative budget to a minimum. In many cases, funds for upgrades simply aren't available.

And yet maintaining inefficient systems can be a significant drain on resources, as Forest YMCA discovered when its IT spend was audited. By using flexible finance, the organisation streamlined and upgraded its entire infrastructure, enabling it to both improve productivity and cut long-term support costs by 40%.

Forest YMCA is a fast-growing young people's charity, based in Walthamstow, East London. The organisation's members provide a broad range of services, including accommodation for homeless people, sports facilities, a print shop, and a café.

Its wide remit, rapid expansion and charitable position conspired to create a complex – and expensive – IT infrastructure. Different areas of the company acquired systems organically, on an ad hoc basis, while the need to divert funds to front-line areas led to a ‘make-do' culture common among many charitable organisations. The result was a mess, as James Nicola discovered when he took up his role as Voluntary IT Manager. One of the first things Nicola did was undertake an audit – he discovered that Forest YMCA was using over 90 different computer models and had no real central control of IT, with staggering annual costs of £200,000.

“The network in place was unstable, it was flaky and it was expensive,” explains Nicola. “There was no support from manufacturers at all if things went wrong. We did have third party support from a local support provider that was costing us an absolute fortune, but nobody had ever queried it as no-one was sure what things should cost.”

Nicola realised that maintaining such a disparate, ageing network was a false economy: migration to a single platform would both improve organisational efficiencies and slash support costs. But there was a problem: cashflow. While Forest YMCA had a healthy turnover of £5 million a year, it had other things to spend it on than IT. Realising that the organisation could not afford the capital cost of buying an entirely new system, Nicola considered a flexible finance solution. Instead of paying upfront for a new IT infrastructure in one go, flexible finance allows organisations to pay over time, thereby maximising cashflow.

Nicola approached several prospective finance providers. The UK's leading independent IT finance provider, Syscap, emerged as a clear favourite. Not only was its quote the lowest, but the company also impressed with their personable, helpful approach.

“The more models you have on the network, the greater the costs,” explains Nicola. “Previously we had 90-something models of machine – we now have one. Without Syscap, we could have reduced the number of machines incrementally, and over the years got the different number of models down to 3 or 4, but we'd never have been able to standardise as much.”

Of course, there's more to acquiring technology than cost. It's a pivotal part of any organisation, and has the power to transform the way it works.

Now Nicola had the infrastructure he wanted, he quickly saw the benefits accrue. “It's increased efficiency considerably,” says Nicola. “We're able to do more in less time, and we made actual cost savings from day one. Already, we've enabled our staff to have different ways of working; our Operations/ Finance Director, who's in the office during school hours only, is now able to communicate with me at 10 or 11 at night … she's even worked from abroad.”

Nicola has also been able to take advantage of Syscap's upgrade facility, which enables organisations to easily update or add to their infrastructure. “We originally planned for four years and realised then that we could go for five; we're now able to buy our telephony solution without increasing monthly repayments.”