Case Study: IT Support for Charities and Nonprofit

We are fortunate to provide a diverse range of IT support for charities and not-for-profit organisations. Here we discuss the needs of your charitable organisation, and we learn how Purple helped The Royal Marines Charity improve service delivery by enhancing their IT infrastructure.

Firstly, a little about the Royal Marines Association (now The Royal Marines Charity):

Whether you’re just starting out, serving full-time or with the Reserves, preparing for civilian life or already there, belonging to the Royal Marines Association keeps you at the very heart of the Royal Marines Family. We’re the constant thread that runs right through your life, providing camaraderie, support, stability, and practical help.

Purple have been working with the RMA for around 8 years. During this time Mike was the Chief Exec for a number of years. They have recently merged with another similar charity whose existing internal IT service will be taking over the service. However Mike kindly sent us the following email shortly before the service was fully handed over.

We are most grateful to Mike, Charlie and the RMA team for their custom and support over the years. The handful of paragraphs below I believe summarise just about every value that Purple stands for. It also shows why we believe our service continues to set the benchmark for outsourced IT support. We believe this applies for all modern small/medium business, school, college or charitable organisation:

25th October 2019

From: Mike Ellis, RMA Chief Executive 2012 – 2018

Dear Purple team,

It seems a long time ago that we set up the IT support arrangement between Purple and the RMA! You may be aware that while I moved on from the Chief Executive position to new pastures well over a year ago now, I am back giving a little support capacity to the team as they continue to bed-in after the merger with the Royal Marines Charity.

The point of this e-mail from out of the blue is that I understand from Charlie that the IT support ties are finally about to be broken and I wanted to personally thank you for all that you have done with the Royal Marines Association.

While we have had some painful experiences together, the ransomware episode particularly springs to the fore of my mind, I am delighted to say that your professional, timely, honest and pragmatic advice and support offered by all of the Purple team has been outstanding and has genuinely allowed the RMA staff to take forward what we were trying to do with the membership of the Association without the need for us to worry about the practicalities and imperative to individually sort out our IT challenges.

I always regarded you as a seamless extension of our team. The prompt response to our shouts for help, no matter how low level or indeed strategic, generated impressively prompt support and professional advice. This enabled us to continue to do our business while reinforced by a confidence that we had the best 21st Century 24/7 fully functioning IT support in place.

While with IT there is always the potential for professionals to bamboozle the uninformed with complex technical jargon, it was always heartening to be able to gain advice from your team that was clear, practical and understandable – and I know that that is no mean feat, so thank you and well done for always being there for us!

I am sorry that the merger has driven the need for the RMA to move on but know that we discussed the realities of the situation a couple of years ago.

On behalf of all of the RMA team, and our Trustees, I would like to thank you for the outstanding support that you have given us throughout the period that we worked together and importantly to wish you and your team every success as you move forward too!

All the very best.

As ever,

Mike