A solution to connect volunteers, partners and associations across France
Created in 2003, France Bénévolat is a national network dedicated to connecting volunteers and associations across France.
In 2010, France Bénévolat was recognised as a public utility and since then has been dedicated to the development of voluntary associative work.
Challenge
Information silos and lack of communication
France Bénévolat already had a simple space for sharing documents and information. It essentially enabled France Bénévolat to make information from common sources available to local France Bénévolat centres and partner associations.
France Bénévolat is organised on the basis of a double network: a loan network of 7000 member associations and a territorial network based on independent associations.
In order to develop its digital transformation project, the project team identified four major objectives:
Pool information and resources and ensure a high cohesion around the organisational project.
Facilitate multiple communications towards the territorial network but also towards the information coming from the centres.
Ensure better cross-functionality.
Work more effectively together to boost innovation
The implementation of a collaborative solution has been identified as an essential means of support to achieve these ambitions.
Why eXo?
An out-of-the-box collaborative portal
Following a series of product demonstrations and constant interactions between the project team and eXo sales and solutions experts, France Bénévolat decided to shortlist the eXo Platform along with other collaborative solutions.
A Proof of Concept (POC) was later developed taking into consideration all of the project requirements. The POC was launched earlier this year, targeting a group of key decision makers.
The initial feedback from early adopters has been positive, with the majority referring to the platform as Intuitive, simple and easy to use. Additionally, the platform has been successful in covering most users’ needs in relation to real-time communications, collaboration, document & knowledge management and more.
The impact
The collaborative portal's deployment occurred in several phases with a co-creation approach. The initiative "Faire réseau" involves coordinated platform animation by trained facilitators. The first phase focused on defining needs, followed by the second phase, which introduced the platform to around a hundred users.
The platform is structured into various sections: an area for official communication and accessing the document repository, sections to support team and project operations, and a thematic community space. The ongoing third phase aims to locally implement the platform and assist all territorial network centers.
Notably, eXo's functionalities have been integrated into different contexts:
Collaborative Spaces: These encompass diverse collaborative tools like an activity stream, document library, task management, an enterprise wiki, and more.
News: Users can create, share, and organize news, ensuring members stay updated on various association activities.
Instant Messaging: Geographically dispersed members can communicate in real time using this feature.
Co-editing: This functionality allows real-time document collaboration, change tracking, version comparison, and reduction of duplicated knowledge, promoting team alignment.
Find all our documents and reports on digital collaboration by visiting our resource center
