Hope Haven leadership has worked with Apparo Tech Therapists for the past year.
Hope Haven is a Therapeutic Community that provides a foundation of recovery for individuals and families impacted by Substance Use Disorder so they can build healthy independent lives.
We checked in with Christy Baker, Director of Development, and Rohan Gibbs, VP of Operations, to learn about their work with Apparo’s Tech Therapy team over the past year.
Christy explains that there had not been anyone at Hope Haven in the Director of Development roles for more than 18 months and she needed support to bring the organization’s social media and website up-to-date:
- In terms of social media, Christy was connected to volunteer Amy Newton. “We received a significant matching gift and needed a communication plan around that. Amy was very helpful with that and also introduced me to Canva, which has been life changing and saves us so much money that we would have spend on a graphic designer. The campaign was a great success; we reached our fundraising goal.”
- For the website, Christy will be working with Apparo-recommended vendor, Laura Rabell, and is excited to launch a much needed refresh.
Rohan shares details on two additional initiatives:
- Hope Haven received 5 refurbished laptops (donated by Compass Group to Apparo for our nonprofit partners) which are “a very important addition to our hardware inventory. We had some very old laptops that were running on very old systems, which we couldn’t upgrade successfully. We couldn’t even hook up a projector for a presentation.”
- Hope Haven has now embarked on a Community Impact Project that was scoped by Apparo Tech Therapist, Ben Knudson. “Our network is pieced together from when we initially moved in. We paid to have some hardwired, but as we’ve grown, we’ve expanded the network by running wire ourselves. We’re doing our best, but we want to move to the cloud and use web-based software and we are worried that our network is not optimal to support that. We have already started our work with a Parker Poe volunteer and appreciate the great observations and ideas.”
In closing, Christy shares, “We are so grateful for the amazing work that you do. As a nonprofit, everyone has to wear a million hats, technology is one that is so challenging because the skills are so specific. The services you provide are so important and helpful.”
