Skilled volunteers from Wells Fargo collaborated with Youth Development Initiatives to streamline their donor management processes, enabling them to serve more students in the Charlotte area.
Youth Development Initiatives Inc (YDI) is an afterschool program for disadvantaged youth in the Charlotte, NC area. Students receive mentoring, mental health assistance, a hot meal and opportunities to give back to their community. The individualized programming focuses on assisting adolescents successfully finish high school and prepare them for life after high school – whether it be further education, the military or starting their career.
YDI came to Apparo requesting guidance to find the right donor management system for their organization. They were having difficulty tracking donors and lacked the ability to create donation reports. The donor recognition process was time-consuming, which made it difficult to create and develop relationships with donors. YDI wanted to improve their organizational processes to create a more efficient and effective way to manage their data.
Apparo partnered YDI with skilled volunteers from Wells Fargo to do a current business state assessment and recommend solutions to create more efficiency. During their Community Impact Project, volunteers discovered Neon One would be the best solution for YDI.
Nonprofit anticipates multiple benefits after implementing Neon One.
As a result of the implementation of Neon One, YDI expects their outreach to grow. Natasha Witherspoon shares “Our YDI team is so thankful for the time that the Wells Fargo volunteers gave to assisting us in vetting CRMs to find the right one for our needs. We could not have navigated the process without the dedication of the volunteer team and look forward to the impact this CRM will have on our fundraising and communications efforts.”
The operational efficiencies that Neon One brings to YDI are far-reaching. All data will be collected into the application, so employees will not need to search in multiple places. The automation of donation acknowledgements not only frees up time but decreases the risk of a missed donor recognition. The reporting will allow targeted campaigns, including a 20th Year Capital Campaign in 2026. With this increased efficiency and efforts, YDI anticipates a growth in donations – from monetary to services to goods.
With this increase in efficiency and better ability to focus on their mission, YDI anticipates being able to serve at least 4 more schools in the corridor of opportunity. They also believe this change will help them grow the program to include 8th grade students.
“We are so excited about how this is going to help us move the needle forward for the young people that we service and allow us to be able to serve more through our fundraising efforts.” – Natasha Witherspoon, YDI.
The Wells Fargo volunteers go above and beyond
The Apparo and Wells Fargo team put together over 80 hours of service dedicated to the YDI team. This translates to a $25,000 market value. As Natasha Witherspoon of YDI said, “that makes me feel outstanding. We are very, very grateful.”
Volunteer Dhivya Venugopalan from Wells Fargo states, “It was a great experience. I’m looking forward to working on another project with Apparo.”
