Wells Fargo skilled volunteers optimize nonprofit technology, so they can do more to combat issues of housing and health for the formerly incarcerated, justice involved, and children in the McKinney-Vento program for homeless children in CMS.
Freedom Fighting Missionaries provides services and resources to the formerly incarcerated and criminal justice involved, leading to self-sufficiency for individuals re-entering society and communities. The challenges for these individuals can sometimes only be achievable with the support and resources of multiple organizations. They are that bridge for these individuals and our partners to help them. Efforts are focused on supporting those who have been incarcerated, the elderly, and those with disabilities. They do this by connecting them with services and resources that are specific to their needs. Four critical services are essential to individuals re-entering the community: identification, healthcare, employment, and housing.
Freedom Fighting Missionaries reached out to Apparo for support in selecting a new application to support their incredible recent growth, as their new client intake increased by 50%, their budget more than doubled and their staff nearly doubled in the past year.
Apparo paired them with a team of skilled Wells Fargo volunteers for an Apparo Community Impact Project. Skilled volunteers assessed the organization’s current software, Zoho, and helped them determine that it could be optimized to meet their needs without transitioning to a new application. The volunteers worked with Freedom Fighting Missionaries to optimize Zoho to meet their needs, including: application intake process, automated marketing, and integrated donation management and fundraising capabilities.
- Freedom Fighting Missionaries Nonprofit Team: Maurice Collins, Kenneth Robinson
- Wells Fargo Volunteer Team: Katie Collins, Amaldass (Benno) Marcellene
- Change Agent: Kelly Stegall
After the project was completed, we met with Maurice Collins (Executive Director) and Kenny Robinson (President) to learn about the importance of this work and the anticipated impact.
Maurice explained, “The goal was to streamline our work so we could keep up with the influx of intake of new clients, which has increased by 50% in the past year. Our use of Zoho wasn’t optimized, so we had no centralized system for our documents, data and processes, which was very hard on our small staff. We were bouncing between two systems, wasting time and replicating work and it made it very hard to train new staff. We needed a one-stop shop, so that we could save time to get other more important things done like consistently following up with our new clients.”
Their newly optimized nonprofit technology system delivers important benefits:
- Sends automated reminders to staff, to ensure all clients are followed up with appropriately
- Improves management of case notes for clients and other documents
- Delivers a time savings of 6+ hours per day for two key staff members alone and, as a result, saves the need to hire a new intake coordinator and social worker
- Saves expense that may have been incurred transitioning to a new system, which is estimated at $100,000
- Allows staff to work effectively from home, improving work/life balance and job satisfaction
- Reduces risk of error due to streamlined and documented processes
- Increases fundraising strength due to accurate capturing and reporting of success metrics
The efficiencies have already paid off, as Kenny explained, “Since we implemented the system two weeks ago, we’ve housed three families, including nine children. Before, that would have taken 3 to 6 months and we were able to do it in two weeks. That’s time that they would have been sleeping in their cars.”
Importantly, these benefits allow Freedom Fighting Missionaries staff to spend more time and deepen the quality of their service to ensure more successful futures for the recently incarcerated and to expand their mission to build their own 24-unit housing, support children impacted by the justice system (due to involvement of parent) and move to new cities.
Members of the nonprofit technology optimization team shared their appreciation:
Maurice Collins (FFM) – “The volunteers helped us realize that the capabilities we need that are already part of our current system and implement them. It was a huge help to us. The system improvements help our small staff be very efficient. We’re a small organization, but we’re doing big things. For us to be where we are now really gives me peace of mind.”
Kenny Robinson (FFM) – “We went from white boards and our memory to an automated system that saves us time and money. No matter how much money we had, we could not have hired a quality team like the Wells Fargo volunteer team. You can’t just go out and hire highly qualified experts like them who showed us genuine caring and concern, along with their expertise. We are now able to expand our mission to support children, and that allows us to grow to the next level.”
Katie Collins (Wells Fargo) – “I’ve done many volunteer things in the past with Wells Fargo, but this is probably the most gratifying one.”
