It’s hard not to get blurry-eyed about GiveCamp.
While it can be a lot to coordinate and the weight of planning feels a bit heavier each year, Friday night as the volunteers and non-profits rolled into the room at Plus Consulting (who are heroes for giving us a location at the last minute) it all made sense as Kim from Footbridge for Families took the mic.
Last year our Salesforce team did an entire Salesforce Implementation for them, helping launch an effort that has provided hundreds of families in Western PA with funds to avoid homelessness & foster care episodes. She told the room that without the effort of our volunteers, they could not have achieved the results and touched the families they have, so that when their families say thank you, they are really thanking the people in this room for making it possible.
The impact of Kim’s words were immediate. The volunteers sat up a straighter, work weary on a Friday night before a short holiday week with lots of compressed deadlines, you could see their faces lighten as they shook of any doubts of giving up their weekend, understanding the work they were about to do touches thousands of the most vulnerable in our community.
The GiveCamp Salesforce team delivered ~$100,000 of services to our non-profit partners this weekend – who combined feed 2000+ families, provide diapers and personal hygiene supplies for 3000+ families, and keep 100’s of families from periods of homelessness and foster care every year.
Teams completed discovery and design on Friday evening (6-10PM), then worked all-day Saturday (9AM-10PM) before wrapping up with final Testing, Training, Documentation, and Deployment on Sunday (9AM-2PM). By the time the weekend was through, the GiveCamp Salesforce team delivered ~$100,000 of services to our non-profit partners this weekend – who combined feed 2000+ families, provide diapers and personal hygiene supplies for 3000+ families, and keep 100’s of families from periods of homelessness and foster care every year.
Our teams delivered some major projects – including standing up an entire knowledge community & migrating hundreds of articles from word, creating a scalable solution to automatically identify the best funding options for clients, and implemented information gathering automation and processes that will eliminate hundreds of hours of manual work each year.
We could not do this effort without our volunteers each year – to all of you – thank you so much, coming out brings so much good to our community that would not be possible without you.
Also, thank you to our sponsors, WorkHard PGH who coordinates all the logistics for GiveCamp and especially Crowe/SparkOrange. Our leaders at Crowe never blink an eye at supporting GiveCamp and sharing my joy in bringing it to life each year, I appreciate their enthusiasm for my passion.
Special shoutout to Plus Consulting (Dan, Kevin, Monica, Amanda, Amy) for helping us host this event at their location on short notice.
Now…on to the projects!
Footbridge for Families
Footbridge for Families is a secure platform that directs community donations to families facing short-term financial crises. Their goals are to 1.) protect children by relieving the stress that caregivers face in financial crises; 2.) give families an opportunity to ask for the help they need and avoid more costly interventions; and 3.) give donors a clear, trustworthy means of helping their community members’ real needs in real time.
Footbridge harnesses the desire of those who seek to give and directs it, as efficiently as possible, to the most time-sensitive financial needs that families face.
The Build
Last year our volunteers helped get Footbridge off the ground by implementing Salesforce NPSP, customized to meet their special business purposes. This year, as they have proven their model and are looking to grow in size, they were looking to automate several manual business processes.
Their organization lines up funding sources with new cases based on the funder’s criteria. New staff have to sort through all those funder’s and their rules to identify a source of funds for a new case. Our team build a scalable model that allows the Footbridge team to enter metadata (Funder Rule and Rule Criteria) which is evaluated in order to find a matching funder. The crew also put together a check request process & automation while working on additional reports & dashboard goals.
Wilkinsburg Community MInistry
Like Footbridge, WCM is a returning non-profit, having their initial Salesforce implementation done by the GiveCamp squad in 2019. That work has allowed them to digitize years of manual processes and data, but they had bigger goals in mind for 2021.
Since 1968, WCM has provided such essential basic necessities as food, clothing and energy assistance to Wilkinsburg residents. They serve approximately 5,000 residents per year, including senior citizens, citizens with disabilities, at-risk youth and families who are economically challenged, underemployed or facing emergency situations.
Their newsletter, which helps reach the residents and communities they serve (while also connecting with donors), has increased in production costs from $200 to $1200 a month. To allow WCM to use their resources where it has the greatest impact, our GiveCamp team did a complete Knowledge Community build, migrating hundreds of articles from past newsletters, and implemented MailChimp + SF integration.
Western PA Diaper Bank
New to GiveCamp this year, the Western PA Diaper Bank has been using Salesforce since they started in 2018. An amazing organization, they provide over 2,000,000 diapers and personal hygiene products to the most vulnerable families in our community each year.
As the Diaper Bank has grown, they have realized they have several process gaps – they are manually entering in diaper orders from partner agencies, their inventory tracking does not work for all locations, they have no way to measure agencies allowances vs requests/usage, and their data had become unstructured over time. With a small staff of 3-4 employees, efficiency matters, and the GiveCamp team definitely delivered.
The team built a new CMDT table that allows tier information to be stored and automatically assigned to Agencies based on their tier settings. A screen flow and some Apex magic allows the WPADB to update the tier values on the front end, simultaneously updating the CMDT entry and allow indicated accounts at the same time. New forms were built to replace clunky web-to-lead experiences, allowing agencies to submit their orders directly as opportunities, capturing products requested as line items.
A simple approve order button closes and converts the order so that it deducts from the correct inventory location automatically. The team added reports and other features that address about dozen missing KPIs the Diaper Bank needed to accurately measure and share their success.
If you would like to learn more about GiveCamp and how to organize one of your own – reach out to me on LinkedIn, would love to chat.