Customer Overview
Case Study
Phab
"Like having another member of staff": How Phab banished spreadsheet chaos with Beacon
Since 1957, the wonderful team at Phab has been dedicated to a singular, powerful mission: promoting inclusion for disabled and non-disabled people.
Through a network of over 100 affiliated clubs across the country, Phab brings people together to simply have fun. They organise incredible, fully accessible adventure days and residential holidays. From skiing to flying private planes at 3,000 feet, Phab ensures that regardless of disability, everybody gets to participate.
Supporting an operation this diverse requires a huge amount of coordination. Janine Williams (National Fundraising and Development Manager) and Sue Karney (Finance and Administration Manager) are at the heart of making this happen. They manage everything from affiliated club networks to massive challenge events like marathon fundraising.
But behind the scenes, their old systems were holding them back.
Before finding Beacon, Phab’s team was managing a heavy administrative burden across a fragmented set-up. They were using a free, open-source platform which, while functional, was overly complex and required a costly external agency just to manage routine updates.
Because the CRM couldn't easily link finance or fundraising totals to individual supporter records, the team had to rely heavily on manual tracking. Managing a marathon runner’s journey meant cross-referencing JustGiving and Enthuse reports, updating individual spreadsheets, and using paper diaries to remember when to chase up pledges.
Working remotely meant data was siloed - finding the answer to a simple question often meant tracking down the colleague who owned that specific spreadsheet. Not only was this a duplication of effort, but it occasionally led to missed opportunities to properly thank donors or connect with fundraisers.
"There was a lot of time wasting with spreadsheets. We were absolutely dedicated not to miss something, so we had to put a lot of extra work in to make sure everybody was meeting their pledges. We just got to that point where enough was enough." – Sue Karney
Knowing that their current system was stunting their ability to grow and engage with supporters, Phab began the search for a new CRM - a system that could serve as a single source of truth for all supporter interactions. After speaking with other event managers in the charity sector, Beacon kept coming up as the top recommendation.
The first major shift for Phab was bringing their entire marathon and events stewardship under one roof using Beacon’s forms and dashboards.
Today, the supporter journey is seamless. When a runner applies for a marathon place via a Beacon form on Phab's website, their data flows directly into the CRM. They instantly receive an automated welcome email, and their profile lands on a beautifully simple dashboard.
Using different "Cards" on the dashboard, Janine can see exactly what stage a runner is at: from "place offered" to "registered" to "fundraising target met."
"I love a dashboard with cards on because you just look at it and find all your information straight away. Since we’ve had Beacon, we have no non-payers because we no longer have a spreadsheet where we have to look up everybody's Enthuse or JustGiving page manually. It’s all linked to the individual, and it’s all there." – Janine Williams
One of the biggest concerns charities have about automation is losing the personal touch. For Phab, the opposite has been true. By using Beacon’s native integrations with JustGiving and Enthuse, the manual "grunt work" of updating fundraising totals is handled automatically.
With this newfound time, Janine and her team focus on delivering "digital hugs." They use Beacon’s integration with Mailchimp to send out podcast links, arrange virtual team meetings, and send highly personalised check-ins to make their runners feel special.
This extra time has also allowed Phab to focus heavily on retention. Because every interaction - from a t-shirt being mailed out to a past event attendance - is logged on a supporter's timeline, Phab can easily identify past runners to invite them to become local volunteers. They don't just treat people as one-off fundraisers; they invite them to become part of the "Phab Family."
It wasn't just the fundraising team that saw a night-and-day difference. For Sue in Finance, Beacon completely transformed how the charity processes direct donations and Gift Aid.
Previously, claiming Gift Aid meant painstakingly typing handwritten form details into the HMRC portal. Today, Phab uses Beacon donation forms integrated with Stripe. Donors can tick the Gift Aid box during their transaction, and the data is automatically compiled within Beacon into a monthly Gift Aid claim, ready to submit with a single click.
"I don't like doing Gift Aid... but now, once a month, I push a button, and the claim is sent. A few days later, HMRC sends the payment. It's just changed my life." – Sue Karney
As a remote team, risk management and collaboration are paramount. Phab replaced their paper diaries with Beacon Tasks. Now, when Janine sets a follow-up reminder to chase a pledge, she gets an automated email from Beacon on the due date. Crucially, because Tasks are linked directly to a supporter's record, any team member can step in and pick up the slack if someone is off sick, ensuring that the charity never misses a beat.
Ultimately, adopting Beacon hasn't just upgraded Phab's technology; it has empowered their staff to focus on what really matters.
"It's like having another member of staff. Beacon just works in the background for us. It gives me the chance to get out on the road to open more clubs and spend more time doing development work. I just say to anyone drowning in spreadsheets: don't be afraid of it, just do it!" – Janine Williams
In the end, Phab’s stellar outcomes are a result of their incredible dedication to their community and their mission of inclusion.
If you feel that Beacon could help enable your organisation to do the same, we'd love to hear from you!
Click here to chat with a member of our team or try Beacon for yourself for free.
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