Case Study: Educational First Steps achieves accreditation 20 months faster and gains real-time data insights with CiviCRM

Access to real-time data improves early childhood education for at-risk children

Educational First Steps, a Dallas-based nonprofit that turns daycare centers in low-income neighborhoods into accredited early-learning sites, needed a cloud-based way to manage contacts, training, and the lengthy accreditation process instead of a fragmented shared drive of 200+ files. They adopted a Skvare-built Mentoring Academy and Assessment Profile (MAAP) built on CiviCRM and Drupal to centralize documents, enable remote data entry by field staff, and provide role-based access to up-to-date information.

Using CiviCRM for contact management, user access and reporting, MAAP delivers custom dashboards, real-time progress reports, event management and training tracking (including mastery of 227 standards and progress toward CDA credentials). The system helped EFS reduce the time to accreditation by about 20 months, manage more than 400 educators across a five-county area, and demonstrate measurable results to funders—backed by Skvare’s hosting and 60+ hours of training.

Educational First Steps

Samantha Moya

Senior Director