G.A.I.N. – powered by Lowe’s
Skilled volunteers from Duke Energy and nonprofit Carolina Youth Coalition helped optimize use of donor management tool, Neon CRM, for Young Black Leadership Alliance allowing them to focus more time on their young leaders.
Young Black Leadership Alliance (YBLA) develops young Black men and women into leaders who will positively impact their peers, families, communities, and beyond. They achieve this through many programs including an Ambassador program that connects Black students around the nation through extensive leadership training, local and international community service experiences, meeting with corporate executives, and much more.
In this phase of the G.A.I.N. powered by Lowe’s program, YBLA was matched to skilled volunteers from Duke Energy: Stephanie Bercht, Crystal Cromartie, Erica Gordon, and Roger Hutcheson, nonprofit, Carolina Youth Coalition, Aaron Randolph, and Change Agent Rusty Reigel of Greenlyte, to help optimize and automate processes of their donor management tool, Neon.
Volunteer Change Agent: Rusty Reigel of Greenlyte
Nonprofit participants: John Martin
Duke Energy Volunteers: Erica Gordon, Roger Hutcheson, Stephanie Bercht, Crystal Cromartie
Carolina Youth Coalition Volunteers: Aaron Randolph
John Martin, the CEO and co-founder of YBLA, requested assistance in creating automated processes in their donor management system, Neon. During this project, skilled volunteers worked to provide the following:
- Improved workflows and created automated processes
- Created a donor management report to help cultivate relationships
- Provided training to ensure efficient utilization of the system in order to understand where donors are within the process
This project has already had a big impact on YBLA. They have implemented workflow automations and created a personalized dashboard that will allow them save 228 hours of staff time annually.. Martin anticipates the time saved will be used to cultivate existing and potential donor relationships which may result in an increase in revenue for YBLA. Another benefit of the automated workflows is the reduction in the impact of staff turnover. After a recent fundraiser, Martin shared that due to this project Neon was able to “automagically” pair a list of donors with Ambassadors through an automated workflow process put in place by the skilled volunteer team. This reduced hours of manual work, and allowed thank you phone calls to be made more promptly.
We met with Martin when the project wrapped up, and he shared his thoughts, “ Thank you for the long effort that you guys have put in to support our young leaders and our mission. Every hour that you all gave, allowed us to give that back to our young people and their parents. It’s a big deal and this implementation will allow us to focus more on our mission-driven work.”
Skilled volunteer, Stephanie Brecht of Duke Energy shared, “I enjoyed working on this YBLA project. It was interesting getting to see the behind-the-scenes of a local nonprofit and everyone was easy to work with. I loved learning a new CRM system and helping YBLA achieve some of their goals with donor management by setting up automatic notifications and workflows. Rusty kept us on track with weekly check-ins and great follow-up notes, which made for smooth sailing. Thank you for the opportunity to work with you all.”
Rusty Reigel with Greenlyte was the Change Agent committed to YBLA for the full two years of their G.A.I.N. program. In closing he shared, “I have had the pleasure of working with YBLA for the past two years and seeing their growth on the technology side to better suit their mission. The determination and effort put in by their team to provide the best technology for their volunteers, members, and donors has been inspiring to be a part of. Really excited to see the impact they continue to make and the growth of their mission.”
