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Prison Fellowship Ministries (PFM) is an outreach and criminal justice reform organization serving prisoners, ex-prisoners, and their children in all 50 states. PFM is an affiliate of Prison Fellowship International, which has more than 90 ministries worldwide. PFM volunteers and staff equip churches and communities to help prisoners, ex-prisoners, and youth at risk reject crime and become contributing members of their families and communities.
To accomplish its mission, PFM interfaces with a number of organizations, including correctional facilities, social service agencies and local churches. There are over 2 million people incarcerated in the United States and probably an equal number of children with at least one parent in jail or prison. To address the growing needs, PFM staff multiply their knowledge and passion through training and supporting a giant workforce of local church partners and volunteers.
PFM faces the ongoing challenge of setting and implementing strategies to serve its huge volunteer force while keeping a clear mission and program focus.
Ensuring Quality Through Business Scorecard
To ensure that PFM is meeting its strategies effectively, the organization uses the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) concept in its business processes. The concept was created by Drs. Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton in 1992, and has been implemented in thousands of corporations, organizations, and government agencies worldwide. The Balanced Scorecard allows organizations to implement strategy rapidly and effectively by integrating the measurement system with the management system.
PFM set out to measure and assess its effectiveness in several key areas, including:
- Customer perspectives
- Internal processes perspectives
- Learning and growth perspectives
- Financial perspectives
Web-based System Enables Effective Communication
To experience the benefits of the BSC process, PFM needed a means to collect, manage and disseminate its strategies and progress to all involved parties. PFM called upon DataHouse to create a custom software system that would provide this functionality.
DataHouse proposed using a Web-enabled system that would make it convenient for staff and donors worldwide to have access to important information. The project required a wide range of skills from DataHouse staff, including system planners, graphic interface designers, software engineers, database designers and network services specialists.
DataHouse leveraged InterLoom™ features to quickly build a Web site that is secure and houses:
- Reports
- Content editing tools
- Database maintenance functions
- User access management
DataHouse analysts surveyed about 100 documents that contained various kinds of BSC information, including strategic objectives, user surveys and data tables. Based on the analysis, DataHouse created custom forms and used the InterLoom™ Table Maintenance Extension to enable staff to manage database information through the Web. Designers built the system to comply with BSC software standards.
The end result was a cleanly designed Web site that serves the needs of PFM on a variety of levels. With network services in the hands of the Nettricity staff, PFM does not need to purchase hardware or manage infrastructure to run this system.
Authorized Users Only
Only authorized users are able to enter the Web site. Based on access level, users can edit reports or maintain data that resides in an IBM DB2 database.
BSC Reports
Users can read detailed reports from a variety of perspectives.
Database Management
Web-based forms allow staff to efficiently manage their information.
Flexible Solutions
Through InterLoom™'s object-based and scalable architecture, DataHouse was able to tailor a Web site solution that meets PFM's specific business objectives. This chart below demonstrates how the InterLoom™ architecture was leveraged to produce a complete solution.
InterLoom™ provides robust functionality through pre-built objects, while also allowing for a great degree of customization when necessary. The new system provides PFM with a solid foundation on which to build future e-business enhancements as needs arise.
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