STREET CARDS NON-PROFIT: OPTIMIZING INTERNAL TOOLS
Street Cards is a non-profit serving those experiencing homelessness in the Twin Cities, providing immediate assistance by understanding individuals’ stories, assessing their unique and immediate needs, and purchasing care items during their main outreach events, Donation Days. Additional outreach programs, Backpack Packing and Sponsorships, offer varying levels of involvement for volunteers.
At the center of the organization is Founder and Executive Director Andrea Bert. She approached me with a system of digital tools that she wanted to leverage to their fullest capacity in order to streamline her workflow, laying the foundation for organizational growth and allowing her to focus her time on the important work of the organization rather than on administrative processes.
SOLUTION:
I created a guided set of recommendations as a roadmap for instituting a more standardized, efficient internal system leveraging BetterUnite, a non-profit management platform Street Cards was already using. Its range of donor management features, integration with other tools already in use, and high level of customization will streamline Andrea’s process, limiting the administrative workload and establishing a framework for data management that will grow seamlessly with StreetCards as they scale up their efforts.
client:
Street Cards - Minneapolis
methods:
Exploratory Research
Comparative Analysis
Cognitive Walkthrough
Interviews
Contextual Inquiry
understanding the opportunity space
THE STREET CARDS VISION
At eighteen months old, Street Cards is thriving, with fifty-eight unique donors, high volunteer retention, and eighty-three separate donations from $5 to $5,000. In 2019, the total number of people served increased 127%. Concerned about growing in an intentional, manageable way, the organization dreams of a future model that can be adopted and executed autonomously to reach more people around the country.
Relatively new, BetterUnite is a powerful but complicated web-based platform. But as the organization’s primary administrator balancing StreetCards duties with work and her young family, diving into BetterUnite’s many offerings became a low priority for Andrea, so I set out to discover how to help her better utilize the platform’s robust functionality.
With the need for scalability and efficiency in mind, I dove into understanding exactly how Street Cards’ tools and processes could be customized to best fit their needs.
a tool for every task
Through initial research I worked to understand typical non-profit structure, operations, fundraising protocol, tools, and limitations. Interviews of subject matter experts in the non-profit space gave insight to the programs and practices commonly used, as well as the endlessly nuanced challenges of fundraising and organization. Participation with my team in a Donation Day event allowed me to empathetically connect with the organization’s goals, as well as to experience administrative processes from a volunteer perspective (and to directly help three individuals experiencing homelessness- which I have to say was pretty cool.)
Contextual inquiry of Andrea’s current administrative processes and tools.
Comparative analysis of similar donor management tools and detailed observation of Andrea’s workflow as she went about her administrative duties illuminated the need for increased consolidation and optimization. It also showed BetterUnite to be the right fit for StreetCards, with ample opportunity to leverage the tool as a hub through which almost all volunteer, donor, and fundraising data would flow, in order to capture and manage information in one central location.
recommendations
In-depth exploration of BetterUnite’s features and in-progress evaluations of my findings culminated in a “Street Cards Guide to BetterUnite.” This set of recommendations was structured to provide Andrea with a clear roadmap for how StreetCards can take greater advantage of the platform’s utility, tailored to the organization’s unique needs surrounding volunteer onboarding, management of donor demographics, financial reporting, participant outreach, and customizable fundraising tools empowering volunteers to launch their own donation collection efforts.
One such recommendation includes the introduction of a general registration page, linked to from the StreetCards website and social media platforms, to capture and aggregate prospective volunteer information in one central location, easily accessible, searchable, and even exportable through Quickbooks integration.
looking to the future
With the ‘StreetCards Guide to BetterUnite’ supplying recommendations for the greatest and most immediate practical impact, the next challenge is to implement those and continue to build on that foundation. As Andrea’s workflow and Street Cards’ organizational processes start to benefit from the efficiencies created, BetterUnite’s advanced functionality can be explored and refined to connect to growing organizational needs. With its full breadth of functionality, from Google Analytics integration to pledge and grant management tools, BetterUnite is fully stocked with features that may not currently be needed, but provide countless exciting possibilities to help shape the future of StreetCards, allowing the organization to expand its outreach across the country, fulfilling their mission to empower more people to step forward and help those in need.
reflection
I would like to thank Andrea Bert and StreetCards for the opportunity to work with an organization that has such an immediate positive impact in our community by directly challenging harmful notions of homelessness.
My hope is that by laying the groundwork for an optimized workflow, Andrea will be able to spend less time on administrative processes and more time doing the important work she loves- creating a strategic vision for the organization’s future.
Participating in our own Prime Donation Day.
