Tearfund dreams of a world where people are freed from poverty, experience transformation, and fulfill their God-given potential. As more churches get involved and more lives are touched, the organization is inspired to dream even bigger. By 2030, Tearfund hopes to partner with 250,000 churches, knowing that the support of others is key to turning this vision into a reality.
The Start of Our Journey Together
Tearfund’s fragmented legacy IBIS system meant manual data entry across multiple systems, spreadsheets, and documents was time-consuming and prone to errors. Outdated, unsynchronized systems required excessive effort and no longer met the organization’s evolving needs. Teams lacked a central place for project and budget data, making performance tracking difficult, and compliance officers had no tailored system, leading to duplication of tasks.
Grant and Partner Management System (Levi)
To replace the fragmented legacy IBIS system, Tearfund partnered with Vera Solutions to implement a Salesforce and Amp Impact-based grant and partner management application called ‘Levi’, governing projects and streamlining financial and compliance processes. The system includes financial management functionality — including partner payment requests and updates — Azure Services for data synchronization, and custom integrations with financial, user, and document management systems, including Google Drive. Together, these tools establish a single source of truth, improving cross-team collaboration and ensuring seamless system interoperability.
Vera and Tearfund conducted discovery and alignment meetings to gather requirements, structuring the project into three phases: discovery, design, and four-week delivery sprints. Levi was implemented through design, configuration, testing, and deployment, using a hybrid/agile approach, train-the-trainer sessions, and user guides. Vera provided roll-out assistance, Managed Services, and ongoing Amp Impact support, and the two teams continue to address ongoing updates and enhancements, including a partner portal and an assessment/form integration.
“Honest conversations, feedback loops, and regular check-ins played a critical role over the lifetime of the project. We collaborated with Vera to ensure we not only celebrated our successes but also continually improved our ways of working. This process required trust—trusting and listening to the experts, and earning the trust of stakeholders. Vera Solutions was a key contributor to the success of the project.”
– Andrew Whitcombe, Head of Global Systems Programme
Benefits and What's Next
With Salesforce and Amp Impact, Tearfund can aggregate data from multiple platforms into a single source, streamlining operations and reducing fees; track project performance across 50 countries by collecting data on beneficiary reach, resource use, and impact on poverty reduction; and make data-driven decisions through centralized project reports and dashboards. The system synchronizes data amongst systems in near real-time, aligns grant and project data for simplified compliance reporting, and provides deeper insights into project performance through partner collaboration — enhancing portfolio decisions by ensuring clear ownership and effective system use. Grant managers can now effectively manage grants for partner organizations, ensuring compliance and optimal fund utilization, while program managers can oversee all program aspects, including planning, implementation, progress monitoring, and impact measurement.
Looking ahead, Tearfund is exploring the potential to bring in Grant Acquisitions Management, providing visibility across the organization to track grant values, burn rates, and financial and donor data in real time. Current plans also include improving and adapting the UI/UX to reinforce user adoption and training through AI and in-app guidance, along with exploring opportunities to bring more business functionality into the Levi system.