With a modern system in place, Making Headway Foundation is simplifying coordination with families and service partners.
Since 1996, the Making Headway Foundation has supported children with brain and spinal cord tumors and their families through
a wide range of holistic services. Founded by parents of survivors, the organization was created to provide long-term, family-centered support often missing from traditional care. Their programs include individual counseling, educational advocacy, in-hospital quality-of-life initiatives, scholarships, and bereavement support. Making Headway also funds groundbreaking medical research, clinical trials, and neuro-oncology fellowships to advance treatment and find a cure. The foundation partners with leading hospitals and is an Executive Council member of the Children’s Brain Tumor Network. Events like Family Fun Day and Broadway outings offer moments of joy during challenging times. Over the past 29 years, they have helped thousands of families navigate life after diagnosis. Making Headway remains committed to easing the burden for families and accelerating progress toward a cure.
Making Headway had been using an outdated Microsoft Access database with limited features that could no longer support the complexity of their services. They needed a centralized, HIPAA-compliant system to track detailed family information, including parent and child records, intakes, demographics, medical history, household details, psychosocial data, and case notes. Their work also involves coordinating with external providers for therapy, educational advocacy, and emergency funds—requiring accurate tracking of approved services, durations, and payments. The legacy system lacked the ability to organize families and children efficiently, capture digital waivers or signatures, upload files, or manage payment documentation. As their needs grew, it became clear they needed a more modern and flexible solution to streamline service delivery and improve documentation.
NewOrg implemented a comprehensive data management solution for Making Headway Foundation, featuring:
- Family-Centered Record Structure: Enabled a centralized system to manage family units, with parents as primary contacts and children as linked sub-contacts for streamlined data entry and service tracking
- Integrated Case Management: Consolidated intake, demographic, medical, psychosocial, and household data into a single, HIPAA-compliant platform to improve continuity of care
- External Provider Coordination: Developed tools to track services delivered by specialist therapy, education assistance partners, and emergency fund partners, including approved amounts, service duration, and provider payments
- Service and Payment Documentation: Introduced event records for documenting services and added dedicated fields for recording disbursements to third-party providers
- Advanced Reporting Tools: Delivered program-specific, organizational, and founder reports that highlighted service stories and demonstrated impact.
- Built-In Communication Channels: Included email and SMS tools for direct outreach and follow-up, supporting timely and consistent communication with families
- Future-Ready Expansion Options: Positioned the organization for growth with optional modules for donor integration and client-facing portals to support ongoing engagement
About NewOrg Management System, Inc.
NewOrg Management System, Inc. has provided secure, cloud-based case and data management solutions to nonprofits and government agencies since 2006. Serving more than 50,000 users across the U.S. and Canada, NewOrg’s fully customizable platform supports case management, service tracking, grant compliance, volunteer coordination, and more—helping partners increase efficiency, transparency, and sustainability.
About Making Headway Foundation
Daniel Lipka
Making Headway Foundation
115 King St. Chappaqua,
NY 10514 United States
914-354-0264
family@makingheadway.org
Media Contact:
Sotiris Koutsoyannis
Marketing/Communication Specialist
NewOrg Management System, Inc.
866-843-2835 x3
newsroom@neworg.com
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