About Kidsafe Victoria
How a small charity with a big mission used Salesforce to keep Victorian children safer - and freed up time for their team to focus on what matters most.
Kidsafe Victoria is an independent, not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the prevention of unintentional injury and death in children through education, program delivery, advocacy and research. Through their many programmes, such as the Nursery Equipment Program, the Hunter Boyle Children's Swim Program, and the Safe Seats Safe Kids Program (a statewide low-cost child car restraint fitting and checking service), they work tirelessly to empower parents, carers and professionals with the knowledge and resources to keep Victorian children safe, regardless of their circumstances.
The Problem
As demand for Kidsafe Victoria's programs grew rapidly, the organisation found itself at a crossroads familiar to many small charities: extraordinary impact, but systems that simply couldn't keep pace. With a lean team of nine and no dedicated IT function, managing their ambitious, state-wide programs posed a significant operational challenge.
The Nursery Equipment Program alone required coordinating 96 maternal child health services across Victoria, a network of subcontractor installers, stock management and warehouse and transport logistics, compliance tracking, and invoicing – all with zero room for error. Meanwhile, the child car restraint fitting program had its own tangle of manual processes: a team member manually transferring booking data at 6 am every morning, a costly third-party integration prone to errors, and no clear way to see what was happening across the state at a glance.
“Kidsafe Victoria needed a solution that could handle the complexity of our work, grow with us, and keep our small, passionate team focused on the mission, not the admin.” Sarah Sexton, CEO, Kidsafe Victoria
Their Pain Points
Time-consuming manual processes
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A team member had to manually extract data from one spreadsheet and push it into another system every morning at 6 am before events could run - a daily drain on precious time.
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The organisation was paying approximately $5,000 per year for a specialist integration that required manual intervention and remained error-prone.
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In order to deliver the Nursery Equipment Program, Kidsafe Victoria needed to build an entire new online portal that would allow Maternal Child Health teams to place orders and for Kidsafe to be able to allocate and manage orders across their network of installers.
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The NEP System also needed to manage end to end invoicing systems, external portal log in for MCH teams and installers, tracking of each installation against KPI's, compliance, audit and budget allocation and utilisation.
Growing demand with no room to scale
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Managing 96 services across Victoria, each with its own budgets, orders, and eligibility, required reliable tracking of budget utilisation and flexibility for budget reallocation.
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Government KPIs required installations to be completed within 7 business days in metro areas and 14 in regional areas – timelines that depended on near-perfect logistics coordination.
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The child car restraint checking program, which has checked over 36,000 child car restraints had previously ceased due to funding constraints, and when it was reinstated, the team had an opportunity to build it from scratch – but needed the right infrastructure to do so.
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There was no scalable way to track, report on, or demonstrate the organisation's impact across programs in a way that supported fundraising or government advocacy.
Lack of automation and centralisation
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Forecasting demand and tracking stock levels required up-to-date reporting for each cot and child car restraint model.
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Without dashboards or unified reporting, the team had limited visibility into program performance, budget utilisation, or geographic trends.
"We don't have IT expertise on our team - there are only nine of us. We fully trust Blaze Your Trail. We go to them with a problem, and we know that they will review it and give us a solution, or give us options. And they've all been extremely successful." Sarah Sexton, CEO, Kidsafe Victoria
Blaze Your Trail’s Salesforce Solution
A Seamless, Automated System
Blaze Your Trail worked closely with the Kidsafe Victoria team to understand the full complexity of their programs before building anything. The result was a Salesforce solution that didn't just digitise existing processes; it transformed them, creating a connected, automated ecosystem that works quietly in the background while the team focuses on impact.
The Blaze Your Trail team co-designed a bespoke Salesforce portal for the Nursery Equipment Program, along Kidsafe and another Salesforce delivery project partner. The project was executed within 9 weeks, end to end. The system connects Maternal Child Health Nurses, Subcontractor Installers, and the Kidsafe team in one place. With easy-to-use solutions, such as when a child car restraint is installed, the installer can upload photos of the child car restraint for a photo audit trail of the job.
Managing a government-contracted program across 96 services demands more than good intentions – it demands precision. The system built supports seamlessly operation of a complex logistics process. Budget visibility across all 96 services is now live in Salesforce, giving the team the oversight needed to redistribute unspent funds to high-demand areas each quarter – ensuring every dollar works as hard as possible, as well as making the Maternal and Child Nurses aware of their own service remaining budget. What was once a manual, error-prone operation is now an automated, auditable workflow that meets government KPIs consistently and gives Kidsafe Victoria the infrastructure to perform like an organisation many times its size.
For the child car restraint fitting program, which delivers large scale events where many child car restraints are fitted and checked in one event, they configured an end-to-end system across Salesforce, Calendly, Zapier, and GoCanvas, replacing fragmented manual processes with a single automated workflow.
A Raisely integration, custom dashboards, and centralised reporting were added to support fundraising and impact tracking.
Since that initial nine-week portal build, Blaze Your Trail has remained a trusted partner, supporting enhancements, integrations, and operational decisions well beyond the original brief.
"Their understanding of how a charity runs, and their understanding of the Salesforce not-for-profit success pack, has been exceptional. We go to them with a problem, and we know they'll give us a solution. All of them have been extremely successful." Sarah Sexton, CEO, Kidsafe Victoria
The Impact
The transformation at Kidsafe Victoria goes far deeper than technology. What Blaze Your Trail built is the operational infrastructure that allows a nine-person team to run state-wide, government-contracted programs with the rigour and precision of an organisation many times their size.
The admin that once consumed hours every week has been quietly automated, and the team can now direct their energy where it matters most: ensuring child car restraints are correctly installed, delivering swimming lessons to vulnerable children, and advocating for systemic changes that save young lives.
"The automations on the back end have been the biggest thing for us. What we used to do manually, we don't have spreadsheets for anymore. It's totally hands-off. It works so well." Sarah Sexton, CEO, Kidsafe Victoria
Time and resource savings
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The $5,000 annual integration cost for the previous child car restraint program system has been eliminated entirely, saving the charity money.
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Manual data entry, 6 am spreadsheet transfers, and disconnected approval processes have all been removed – saving significant staff time every single week.
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Installer invoicing, previously a manual process, is now submitted and approved within the platform, dramatically reducing administration time for both the team and their subcontractor network.
More families reached, more safety created
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With a system built to scale, Kidsafe Victoria can handle growing demand across all 96 services without adding headcount or compromising on the KPIs set by their government contract.
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Over 36,000 child car restraint checks have now been completed – and with 90% of those restraints found to be incorrectly fitted or adjusted, every one of those interactions has the potential to prevent a serious injury, and it’s recorded so the team can stay connected with families, reminding them of their next event to check their child car restraint.
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The Nursery Equipment Program’s delivery timelines are consistently met, ensuring vulnerable families receive child car restraints and safe-sleep equipment when they need them, not weeks later.
"Blaze Your Trail essentially represents Kidsafe as our knowledge experts in Salesforce. They even help us with things a little outside the box — password managers, DocuSign – they really go beyond what you'd expect." Sarah Sexton, CEO, Kidsafe Victoria
A system built to support their team
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Since the initial portal launch, Blaze Your Trail has supported two rounds of enhancements, continuously improving the system as the team's needs evolve.
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The fundraising and Raisely integration has given Kidsafe Victoria a foundation to grow their individual donor program – an area the team is actively investing in.
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The organisation now has the data infrastructure to tell its impact story with confidence – to government funders, corporate partners, and the families they serve
Why Did You Choose Blaze Your Trail?
"I would highly recommend Blaze Your Trail. They're not just technically excellent – they understand charities, they understand what we're trying to do, and they care about your work like your own team would. They’ve transformed the way we now think about technology.
Previously, our team worked manually, getting up super early to make sure everything was done correctly. I wanted our team to be focused on more meaningful work.
We decided to work with them, and from day one, it’s been incredible, because they come to the table with lived experience of how charities work, and the tiny details that are important, which we may not think about, but they do.
For any not-for-profit thinking about their Salesforce platform, they're the partner you want alongside you." Sarah Sexton, CEO, Kidsafe Victoria
On what prevention actually looks like, most charities can point to what they've done.
Kidsafe Victoria measures success by what didn't happen.
"If nothing happens – if everyone goes home and gets tucked into their bed at night – that's the best thing that could happen. But it is hard to measure what didn’t happen. What we can measure is how many child car restraints we have fitted and checked, how many families we have provided free nursery equipment to, and how many professionals we have provided with critical education and training, and we can see all of this impact in Salesforce." Sarah Sexton, CEO, Kidsafe Victoria
On the automations changing everything
Before Salesforce, someone on the team was starting work before sunrise just to keep the program running.
"Before Blaze Your Trail, someone on our team had to log in at 6:00 AM every single morning just to manually upload data - a massive, time-consuming drain on our resources. Now, we’ve completely eliminated those endless spreadsheets. The back-end automations run seamlessly behind the scenes, making the entire process totally hands-off. It’s been a game-changer for us." Sarah Sexton, CEO, Kidsafe Victoria
On going beyond the brief
“When you're a small charity, you need a partner who treats your problems as their own. We often go to them for things a little bit outside of the box, and they're happy to help – a password manager, DocuSign and many other digital queries or considerations. They really go beyond what you'd expect, their team is just incredible." Sarah Sexton, CEO, Kidsafe Victoria
On building the portal in nine weeks, from first conversation to go-live.
Nine weeks. State-wide.
"When we were successful in securing the Nursery Equipment Program, we needed a brand-new portal to manage the program end to end, including internal and external portal access. Blaze Your Trail stepped in as our Salesforce experts, working alongside our build partner through an intense, fast-paced effort. In just nine weeks total – from our first deep dive to full rollout – we had the platform live and working for the community." Sarah Sexton, CEO, Kidsafe Victoria
On the consultants who showed up
A Salesforce partner that comes to your gala dinner. That's a different kind of relationship.
"The two consultants we have are Mrudula and Paula, and they are both brilliant. They've come to our galas every year, they are like an extension of our team because they work so hard alongside us to deliver work that is going to save lives, they never say they can’t do something, they’re just so helpful. They're amazing." Sarah Sexton, CEO, Kidsafe Victoria
On trusting Blaze Your Trail completely
With a team of nine and no IT function, Kidsafe Victoria needed a partner they could hand the keys to.
"We don't have IT expertise on our team. We fully trust the Blaze Your Trail team as they’ve never let us down. We go to them with a problem, and we know they'll give us a solution or give us options. All the projects we have worked on together have been extremely successful." Sarah Sexton, CEO, Kidsafe Victoria
Practical support that goes beyond implementation
“For nonprofit organisations, expert Salesforce support is often out of reach. Blaze Your Trail changes that. Every nonprofit they work with gets free access to "Ask Us Anything" sessions; three times a week, no extra cost, no question too small.” Sarah Sexton, CEO, Kidsafe Victoria
Learn more about Blaze Your Trails' partnership services here.
