CGI skilled volunteers selected new software to track programs, contacts and participants for Wayfinders. As a result, Wayfinders anticipates saving 50 hours/year, which will allow them to expand their program and “to serve more students with life-changing camp, enrichment, and mentoring experiences.”
Wayfinders’ mission is to ignite students’ potential by expanding their confidence, connections, and horizons. They achieve this through summer camps, year-round enrichment programs, and mentor relationships for self-motivated, underserved students. Wayfinders, formerly called the Bruce Irons Camp Fund, serves over 150 CMS students between 4th and 12th grade.
Wayfinders had been tracking their program data manually in Excel, but to meet their growth demands, they need a more efficient system. They were matched to a volunteer team from CGI who helped them identify a system that will allow for the collection, tracking, analysis, reporting and outcome measurements of their program related information. Their CGI volunteers reviewed Wayfinders’ current processes and helped them determined the best software application to support their growing organization: Neon.
See one-page project overview Snapshot here.
Wayfinders shared news with us that they recently received a $40,000 grant, due in part to having Neon in place to track metrics. This grant will allow them to make a critical part-time hire to support the expansion of their program.
Upon implementation of Neon, Wayfinders’ leadership anticipates:
- Saving 50 hours per year in staff time, which can be spent nurturing scholar/mentor relationship and serving more students
- Increased revenue, driven by stronger ability to tell their impact story through more robust reporting
Their Executive Director, Mollie James, shared her appreciation: “Allison [Grant] from Apparo and the volunteer team from CGI were fantastic. It was so comforting knowing I had experts in the field helping me make the best choice of CRM for our organization. I can’t wait to get started using Neon — it will save us staff time, improve our ability to track and report on our impact, and allow us to serve more students with life-changing camp, enrichment, and mentoring experiences.“
CGI volunteers shared their appreciation for this volunteer opportunity:
- “Working with Wayfinders and Apparo has been very uplifting. It’s been great to see the value Wayfinders provides to the students. The best part is knowing that this project can boost Wayfinders’ positive impact to students and their lives.” – Jericho Estanislao
- Having been involved with nonprofits as a participant, volunteer, and employee, I’ve experienced most sides of the nonprofit space. The care and dedication from both Wayfinders and Apparo was plain to see, and working with organizations that truly focus on providing the greatest benefit to their constituents was a wonderful opportunity” – Jon Daniele
- “I thought it was cool and it was interesting researching all the different CRMs. It was nice helping out Wayfinders because of what they do for the community and specially helping out the
kids.” – Tristen Spruill
See detailed project overview.
