Due to circumstances beyond their control related to their previous hosting provider, PACH was recently forced to find a new host for their Joomla website and CiviCRM. In addition, PACH has one volunteer in charge of CiviCRM which manages more than 450 volunteers and supporter contacts. They recognized the need for a solid support team in the event that this volunteer becomes unavailable or is unable to resolve an issue. They had asked several CiviCRM providers, but it was difficult to find one that could host and support Joomla, until they found Cividesk.
Phoenix Allies for Community Health (PACH) is a free clinic run by volunteers in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. PACH currently provides free primary care to 250 clients, this number being limited by the available donated funds to cover the lab fees. All other medical and non-medical work is performed by a team of very dedicated and compassionate volunteers. The organization also offers educational opportunities for students in the medical field.
Cividesk was happy to provide pro-bono assistance to PACH as part of their giving back program. We helped them work through this unexpected hosting issue by transferring their Joomla website and CiviCRM to be hosted on our servers, and upgraded both software to a more recent version. We then debugged and fixed legacy configuration issues, and routed all outgoing emails through a professional service. Finally, we secured the installations through more restrictive permissions and use of encrypted connections for administrative access. Cividesk continues to offer PACH ongoing pro-bono services through monthly hosting, maintenance and support.
Victor Odhner, PACH's volunteer administrator says: "The web site transfer was seamless. Glitches were ironed out within hours, and web response is now quicker than with the previous host. I also know that we won't be alone whenever we hit a roadblock with CiviCRM". PACH Clinical Director Amy McMullen adds, "More of our donated dollars can go to lab tests, serving a few more clients who have no access for medical screenings and treatment". Odhner agrees by saying “Every dollar represents some direct client care, so Cividesk’s contribution of pro-bono services has a critical impact as we can afford more diagnostic tests for diabetes, high cholesterol and heart problems before these lead to even more serious health problems”.
