Overview:
A religious non-profit in Los Angeles first engaged ADVANTIDGE over 5 years ago when looking for an ID solution to issue their staff & members in their donor network.
At the time, the organization’s leadership needed custom ID badges to better identify who was attending their in-person events. As their population of members and high-value donors grew, they needed to distinguish multiple categories of people in addition to VIPs. Using professional Asure ID software, they built out a multi-tier membership system that issued high-quality, oversized, and regular-sized credentialed ID cards. This way, they could easily differentiate IDs between donors, youth organization supporters, staff, and volunteers.
After establishing confidence in ADVANTIDGE for the success of their first project, the faith-based organization reached out again, several years later, to address an even more complex challenge. They relied on ADVANTIDGE to upgrade security and the physical access control system at their new facility with the focus on securing the main entry points on the ground floor of their student dorm center.
Challenges:
As the pandemic eased, the organization made plans to return to in-person education settings and reopen its student housing. Given that the student center was a 24-hour facility, they wanted to secure all external entry points to ensure residents’ safety. Additionally, the leadership team wanted to prevent unauthorized access to three interior rooms for health reasons. It was important to the team that the system integration would not disrupt ongoing student activities. They were also concerned that installing new readers would conflict with the aesthetic of the classic Southern California architecture.
The last challenge to address was budgeting. As a non-profit, the security project was entirely funded by private donors, which meant the donors had to approve the proposal and process.
Solutions
Through a consultative approach, ADVANTIDGE reviewed the floor plans and the requests from the non-profit management team. Knowing the budget was limited, ADVANTIDGE presented a plan that addressed each concern while emphasizing the critical points of entry as the minimum requirement. The plan was modular enough to meet their budgetary restrictions and still properly upgrade security measures.
Physical access control was implemented for the exterior doors that had direct access to streets and public entry, thus immediately ensuring the safety of their student population.
Once the ground floor was secured, the donors requested that the non-profit executive team continue to work with ADVANTIDGE. They were enlisted to expand the existing physical access control system to secure additional facilities around the country.
In response, ADVANTIDGE recommended Brivo cloud-based software for access control. This system leveraged RFID keyfobs for students and staff, with remote management capabilities, which allowed custom levels of authorized access.
With an updated physical access control system that preserved the historical architecture and secured entryways, students and staff were ready for the organization’s reopening. With the cloud-based platform in place, ADVANTIDGE is able to easily add on additional entry points whenever the client is ready to expand to other interior doors and multiple floors.
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