St. HOPE accelerates mission to support Sacramento youth

St. HOPE, a nonprofit community development corporation, has leveraged Oracle NetSuite to support its mission to create one of the finest urban pre-kindergarten through 12th grade public school systems in the United States. With NetSuite SuiteSuccess for Nonprofits, St. HOPE has been able to streamline critical business functions in order to focus its time and resources on providing high quality public education and creating living-wage sustainable jobs.

Founded by former NBA All-Star and Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson in 1989, St. HOPE began as a single, portable classroom that served as an afterschool program for Sacramento High School students. Today, it serves 1,800 students through five charter schools and manages residential properties as well as an Art and Cultural Center that includes a cafe, bookstore, barbershop, art gallery and 200-seat theater. The charter school network focuses on students from urban communities and aims to graduate self-motivated, industrious and critical-thinking leaders who are committed to serving others, passionate about lifelong learning and prepared to earn a degree from a four-year college.

“As we found success with the schools, the organization realized that we had an opportunity to do more in the community,” said Julian Love, chief financial officer, St. HOPE Community Development. “That meant we needed a system that could better track and manage finances. SuiteSuccess fit exactly what we needed.”

With the preconfigured roles, dashboards and nonprofit industry best practices within SuiteSuccess, St. HOPE has been able to shorten payroll processes by 87 percent, digitize & gain greater control over purchasing processes, and achieve real-time visibility into its financial performance. As a result, St. HOPE has been able to manage the increasing business complexity presented by its growth and expanding scope. St. HOPE selected NetSuite SuiteSuccess for Nonprofits in March 2017 and went live with a full-fledged Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system in less than three months.

“NetSuite has a proud history of helping organizations in the nonprofit sector,” said David Geilhufe, Head of Nonprofit, Oracle NetSuite. “With SuiteSuccess, we’re able to help thriving organizations like St. HOPE to quickly and easily manage critical business functions so they can focus on their mission and on helping the community.”