Children Believe & XP – Building not-for-profit digital capacity for greater impact.

Discover how Children Believe Fund gained the tools and agility to better engage supporters, streamline operations, and focus on what matters most: empowering children to dream fearlessly.

CLIENT STORY ⋅ 8 MIN READ

Client Profile

Children Believe Foundation (CBF) is a Canadian-based international charity with a 60+ year legacy of empowering children and youth in developing countries. With a dedicated team and a global network of 27 local partners, CBF reaches over 1.46 million children, families, and vulnerable community members each year. Their work spans education, health, child protection, and economic empowerment—helping communities break barriers and build brighter futures across Africa, Asia, and the Americas.

Challenge

CBF’s mission was outgrowing its legacy technology. Their custom Oracle system and aging website made it difficult to engage supporters, manage sponsorships, and deliver programs efficiently. Manual processes slowed down everything from publishing child profiles to processing donations. The lack of integration between the website and CRM meant staff spent valuable time on repetitive admin, rather than on impact. CBF needed a modern, unified digital platform (delivered on time and on budget!) to power their next chapter of growth.

Solution

CBF chose XP to deliver a custom digital transformation, including:

Seamless integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM
A modern, rebranded website built on DNN
DIY content management modules
Digitized and automated admin workflows
AI-driven child bios and dynamic sponsorship journeys

Microsoft Dynamics

DNN platform

XP and Children Believe collaborate frequently via Teams.

Finding the right partner

When Children Believe set out to transform their digital infrastructure, they weren’t just looking for a vendor, they wanted a partner they could rely on. Moving systems while maintaining business as usual is always a resource-heavy task. They needed to be sure XP could deliver.

CBF’s search for a digital partner was rigorous and XP didn’t start as the frontrunner against larger and more established IT providers. Paskwa Mutunga, Children Believe’s Director of IT recalls XP’s RFP response was quite brief and for a while, the committee ranked them quite low because of that. But when it came to the demos, XP shone. Their demos were visual, and we could almost touch and feel the solution. That’s what convinced us.

Corbin Andrews, a key consultant working with Children Believe, adds: “One of the agencies was extremely polished in their presentation, and XP wasn’t like that—which was the irony. I kept thinking, I don’t know if they could bend or be flexible because their approach seemed so rigid. That’s what a lot of people thought. But XP, in contrast, felt much more adaptable—almost flowing.”

1.46 Million

The number of children, families and vulnerable community members reached through Children Believe's programs in 2024.

$31.5 Million

Total revenue (in Canadian dollars) raised by Children Believe in the 2024 fiscal year.

27 Partners

The number of local partners Children Believe worked with across 762 community groups.

Woman looking at Children Believe website on a laptop

More than expected

Xtreme Productivity aims to exceed requirements to add value and help clients achieve their goals. Children Believe needed more than what they initially requested, and XP saw a way to deliver what was needed, not just what was asked for, all while staying within budget. Paskwa recalls:

Our RFP was focused on replacing our existing CRM with Dynamics. But XP offered us something extra—they said, ‘We could do your website as well, and we can provide an out-of-the-box GPMS, all without expanding the budget.’ That was a big deal, especially the website, which really got our Director of Digital Experience excited. She had wanted to redo the website for a while, but we just didn’t have the budget. So this was a real game-changer for her.

“Before we signed with XP, we checked the references. Everyone we interviewed said there’s no one faster. One referee said he’d never worked with a faster implementer than XP. The turnaround was pretty amazing. We noticed that XP’s pace was fast. We were the ones lagging, trying to catch up!”

Paskwa Mutunga

Director of IT, Children Believe Fund

Microsoft Dynamics CRM brings tangible results

Microsoft Dynamics helps simplify processes

Children Believe set an ambitious goal: to simplify its digital architecture and speed up the flow of information across its global team. Instead of waiting months for field data to reach Canada and supporters, they wanted it available within minutes.

By integrating applications and introducing an offline mobile app that syncs directly with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, the team eliminated manual steps and email-based processes. Now, when data is submitted in the field, it appears in CRM almost instantly—no duplicate entry, no delays.

When we went live on July 1st 2025, the difference was incredible. What used to take months now takes minutes. Field teams submit data offline using the FaithWorks mobile app and as soon as they sync, it’s in CRM and ready for action. This has completely changed how we work, says Paskwa.

Time Saving

Other wins include AI-driven child bios. Previously child bios combined static sentences with placeholders for dynamic content, but the end result was clunky and lacked natural flow. These bios are and important part of potential donors connecting with a sponsor child, so to improve this experience XP integrated an AI text-generation service with Dynamics CRM. Now each child’s profile automatically converts raw data into a natural, personalized story, and awkward placeholder sentences are a thing of the past.

Corbin notes, XP has a lot of experience in our space, which has helped because INGOs, especially child sponsorship INGOs, are notoriously consensus-driven. They understood problems without us having to explain them in detail, which helped us arrive at solutions much faster.

Empowered Team

Corbin highlights, “the business [can] take more ownership of process and workflow… We’re now able to create a whole new set of products in a couple of days. In the past that would have been weeks of an IT ticket… now we can just set it up and then flip it over to finance. They do their part and we have a new product within a couple of hours.”

Paskwa sums it up: “Simplification, time saving and empowerment are three massive wins.”

Powerful results

Adaptive Journeys

Integrated systems and mobile tools make ChildrenBelieve more agile—enabling personalized experiences for supporters worldwide.

Time Saving

Product creation processes that would have taken weeks now take 1-2 days.

Empowered Team

Non technical teams are able to create and deploy changes independently.

XP go the extra mile to support our client's because the work they do is so important.

Dedicated IT partner committed to your mission

What stood out most to CBF? “We felt this was a partner who would go above and beyond to help us, and we would be a team. So that has been the case… XP has just delivered. If people say this is a ‘must have’… XP has been flexible enough to just deliver,” says Paskwa.

The involvement of XP’s leadership was also unique: “I thought Christi (XP Managing Director) would only be involved at the beginning like most senior executives are, and then leave it to his team. But he’s involved… If there’s an issue, I can just text him and he’ll respond immediately. That responsiveness from the entire team, including Christi, is very, very different from other organisations.”

It’s usually the old bait and switch, right? You get the big guns and then you never see them again. But at XP you have people who are clearly willing to roll their sleeves up. That’s been a good challenge to us because XP will just get on a call and do it.

Corbin Andrews

Technology Consultant,

When asked how likely they are to recommend XP, Paskwa’s answer is clear: “100%.”

Children Believe Foundation’s digital transformation journey with XP is a testament to what’s possible when a client’s vision meets a partner’s commitment to flexibility, speed, and genuine collaboration. At XP, we’re proud to play a supporting role in CBF’s story—helping them do more, faster, for the children and communities they serve.

Children Believe & XP – Building not-for-profit digital capacity for greater impact.

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Client Profile

Challenge

Solution

Finding the right partner

1.46 Million

$31.5 Million

27 Partners

More than expected

Microsoft Dynamics CRM brings tangible results

Microsoft Dynamics helps simplify processes

Time Saving

Empowered Team

Powerful results

Adaptive Journeys

Time Saving

Empowered Team

Dedicated IT partner committed to your mission

It’s usually the old bait and switch, right? You get the big guns and then you never see them again. But at XP you have people who are clearly willing to roll their sleeves up. That’s been a good challenge to us because XP will just get on a call and do it.

When asked how likely they are to recommend XP, Paskwa’s answer is clear: “100%.”

If you are ready to break through digital barriers and empower your team to do more, faster, let’s talk.