G.A.I.N. – powered by Lowe’s
PetSafe and LPL Financial volunteers partnered with Young Black Leadership Alliance to build, migrate and implement a SharePoint site that will serve as a central location for file storage. YBLA anticipates improved operating efficiencies and collaboration as a result of this effort. This project was completed as a part of Apparo’s G.A.I.N. program.
Young Black Leadership Alliance (YBLA) identifies, educates and develops young black leaders to have a positive impact on their community and beyond, ensuring that they are college and career ready. They currently support 300 high school students, 80+ college students and 20+ young working professionals.
YBLA embarked on their next journey of G.A.I.N., an Apparo program generously sponsored by Lowe’s and EY. This project was generously sponsored by Bank of America. Change Agent, Rusty Riegel from Greenlyte Group, led the project with project volunteers, Kirk Windisch, LPL Financial, and Lauren Jean, PetSafe. The project scope included to building, migrating and implementing a SharePoint site that will serve as the organization’s central location for file storage. As a result of this project, YBLA anticipates the ability to consolidate and integrate tools allowing them to operate more efficiently and collaboratively. Having one source for all file storage will improve staff’s ability to find files with ease. In addition, utilizing Microsoft Tools, OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams, will allow for more tool integrations, streamlined processes and increase staff’s ability to collaborate. This project was generously sponsored by Bank of America.
YBLA Founder & CEO, John Martin, shared more about what this change means for his team and those they serve, “Making our team more efficient will allow us to be more impactful to students and parents. We are excited about impacting young people’s lives and this helps us to do that even more.”
YBLA also anticipates being able to decommission their use of DropBox, saving the organization around $4,500 annually. Martin shared the impact of this savings, “Having this savings will allow us to reallocate funds into something else, $4500 could be a whole scholarship for one of our students to participate in the program or even to go to college. This is going to impact someone’s life.”
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Together with Apparo, volunteers contributed 80 hours and delivered a project worth $15,600.
Volunteer, Kirk Windisch, shared his excitement about the project, “Honored to help John and his team streamline their collaboration. Proud to support the work he is doing to educate and develop young black leaders. Thank you John for placing your trust in us and being such a great partner!”
Rusty Riegel who led the team as the project Change Agent, shared, “I am very thankful for the opportunity to work with YBLA and Apparo on another project for John’s team. It is a pleasure to be able to provide a service to these great organizations while also learning and bettering myself in the process! We feel great about the new document management and collaboration work that YBLA will be able to handle moving forward on their Sharepoint system. Excited to hear how it helps and to continue being a part of the growth!”
Martin was grateful for the time and skillset the volunteers contributed, “Thank you, Rusty, Kirk and Lauren. Time is our most valuable asset and the time you gave to better our organization is very much appreciated.”