During the past 10 years, College Now Greater Cleveland has flourished. The nonprofit, which helps students in low-income families attend college, has grown from 56 employees and a $5.1 million budget to more than 180 employees and a $17.9 million budget.
Ohio.net, a Doylestown firm that provides internet-based phone services to homes and businesses, has assisted College Now with its growth. That’s important because College Now communicates with more than 30,000 clients every year.
“Our organization relies heavily on communication and collaboration,” says Jeff McKissick, chief information officer at College Now. “If we didn’t have the ability to route calls effectively, we would have to hire multiple receptionists.”
“We value our partnership with Ohio.net beyond the phone technology services supplied,” says Lee Friedman, CEO of College Now. “After benefiting from Ohio.net’s nonprofit donation program, we were able to participate in it ourselves and donate items to other area organizations, completing the circle and enabling us to further impact the community. We are grateful for these opportunities to give back in other ways through Ohio.net.”
College Now is a key player in Ohio.net’s Nonprofit Technology Stewardship Program, in which businesses and nonprofits donate old phones and hardware to Ohio.net. The company refurbishes the equipment and gives them to others, growing nonprofits at no cost, then provides phone service at a discount.
Program recipients have included Adoption Network Cleveland, the Salvation Army Northeast Ohio Division, Business Volunteers Unlimited, the Cleveland Orchestra and Hispanic Business Center, says Alex Desberg, sales and marketing director at Ohio.net.
“A lot of times I see organizations struggling with communications,” Desberg says. “It could be their voicemail doesn’t work, or they have only a couple of phone lines. Then, I see them throw out old phones that are perfectly usable.
“I love to see that old equipment benefit a nonprofit struggling with a cordless phone and an answering machine,” Desberg says. “No one should be doing business like that anymore.”
Desberg says College Now inspired Ohio.net to establish the nonprofit program and was one of its first recipients.
New Technology
When McKissick joined College Now in 2009, he was tasked with upgrading the organization’s technology, including the phone and communication system. After tackling other tech needs, he addressed the phones in 2012. The system needed more functions and flexibility.
College Now sought communication technology proposals from several firms, including Ohio.net, which started as an old-fashioned telephone company more than 120 years ago. For the past 12 years, Ohio.net has specialized in “voice-over internet protocol,” or VoIP.
Simply, VoIP is a phone service that exists in the internet cloud. The advantage is that customers can add a new feature, like the ability to send voicemail to email, without having to buy a new phone system or tinkering with the existing system. The feature is simply turned on, and every feature one can imagine is already baked into the VoIP cake.
VoIP also comes with, among other functions, automated attendant, which routes calls based on voice prompts, and conference bridging, which creates audio conference rooms. It can record calls and transfer a call to another extension if the first extension is busy.
When College Now was searching for a new phone system seven years ago, VoIP was still a bit on the edge, but it delivered everything the nonprofit needed, McKissick says.
For example, College Now’s old phone system didn’t include a call tree, which gives callers various automated options. And if College Now changed work hours on certain days, it wasn’t easy to adjust the system to inform clients the office was closed. VoIP easily handles both those functions.
It wasn’t only Ohio.net’s technical capabilities that won over McKissick. Ohio.net extended special pricing to College Now because it was a nonprofit, then months later donated used, refurbished phones to the organization. That was the genesis of Ohio.net’s nonprofit tech program.
McKissick was also impressed with Desberg himself.
“He would listen to you as if he really wanted to solve your problem,” McKissick says. “That’s refreshing nowadays. I value that.”
Throughout the years, Ohio.net has continued to improve phone service for College Now. For example, because about 70 percent of College Now workers are often away from the office at various schools, Ohio.net added an app that transfers incoming calls from workers’ desks to their cell phones.
Another Ohio.net phone service bolstered a College Now partnership with Cleveland State University. The nonprofit finds financial assistance for college-age students who have dropped out of CSU or want to enroll for the first time but can’t due to lack of funds.
McKissick says the program is successful and keeps College Now workers busy. Ohio.net technology allows those workers to take calls from their desktop computers, which saves dialing time. It also identifies clients calling in and opens their computer files before the call is answered.
“We are always looking for simple efficiencies so our people don’t have to spend so much time on administrative tasks,” McKissick says. “Each efficiency saves a little bit of time, but it all adds up.”
Giving Back
Ohio.net supported College Now through a couple of relocations, helping set up phone service when the nonprofit moved from its original location in the BP Building downtown to the Terminal Tower. In May, College Now moved into Post Office Plaza, a former post office that is now an office complex on West Third Street.
Two years ago, College Now again outgrew its phone system, which it had purchased from Ohio.net, and upgraded its hardware. Instead of tossing the old phones out, the nonprofit gave them back to Ohio.net, which fixed them up for its nonprofit stewardship program. There were about 100 phones in all.
Ohio.net targets organizations with office staffs of fewer than 50 for its nonprofit program. The company accepts nominations for the program and evaluates them.
For College Now, Ohio.net has gone above and beyond. The firm donated money so that College Now could install, in one of its conference rooms, microphones, speakers and audio-conferencing technology that allows collaboration with off-site staffers and partners.
Also, Ohio.net has connected College Now to other vendors. When College Now needed a company to host data in the cloud, Ohio.net steered it to BlueBridge Networks in downtown Cleveland.
“One of the words that come to mind when I think about Ohio.net is ‘partnership,’” McKissick says. “That’s what we have with Ohio.net, and it doesn’t always happen with vendors.”