Transcript of Video
Customer Success Story
Project: Reading Pals Program
Solution: Andar Plans
Customer: United Way of Broward County, Fort Lauderdale
Featuring: Natalie Riusech, Director, Development Operations and Donor Relations
United Way of Broward County is just one of over eighteen-hundred chapters of United Way across the country, we really are a worldwide organization. Here locally, we’ve been around for almost eighty years, our eightieth birthday is next year! We are a proud funder and supporter of many nonprofits in the community. There are about sixty-five/seventy programs that we fund here locally who really truly depend on our support. Our populations is about just shy of two million, so we’re only one county, but we are a very large, a very diverse county with very diverse issues that we face.
Can you tell us about your Reading Pals program?
We have over three-hundred volunteers who are part of that program each year, and it’s just growing! Our program coordinator had to make sure that all of them got their fingerprints done, that they were selecting what school site they wanted to be at. It was a whole application process which she single-handedly had to orchestrate and she would take time out of her nights and weekends to try to coordinate all of this and she had to be on top of remembering to send emails to follow-up with all of these individuals so that they carried through all the steps; so they got from expressing interest to actually becoming a Reading Pal volunteer. There were so many steps in between and so many ways where it could go wrong. I’m sure there was just so much frustration doing all of that manually, not knowing that there was such a better solution, a way to automate all of that.
What was the implementation process like?
The program was already completely built out, we already knew all the steps that needed to be taken for each of our volunteers, it was just a matter of automating them and making them happen seamlessly; and it saved so much time, frustration, calls to volunteers, we already knew where they stood in the process, who had already completed, who was well on their way and we were able to track and monitor that in real-time.
Why did you choose to use Andar Plans?
We decided to go with Plans over any other option that was out there primarily because we already store our donor data, our other volunteer data and so many other aspects of United Way live in Andar. So, it was such a benefit that someone who is looking up this information on a donor to reach out and connect to them can also see their involvement in Reading Pals and see what they are going through there and be able to have just one central hub for all of it.
What’s your favorite aspect of using Andar Plans?
Our favorite feature was the email communication. Definitely the fact that it felt personalized and tailored to the volunteer, it still was coming through perfectly aligned with our timeline.
How was using Andar Plans beneficial to your volunteers?
Plans are pretty much on the backend. It’s what as staff members, it’s what we see, it’s what we look at; however, we want to make sure the volunteers are having the best experience possible. No matter how they interact with us, they’re definitely more inspired and more in touch with United Way if we make this process so seamless, so smooth and we look extra put-together.
How did Andar Plans help you achieve your goals?
The best example of how Plans helped us achieve our goals as an organization was the fact that when we started a new cycle for Reading Pals we didn’t have to re-invent the wheel. It was already there, we had the steps already laid out. We were able to re-evaluate and tweak a little bit our timeline to see if maybe we had to give a little buffer room between steps three and four, or stuff like that. So, we were able to actually just build off of it and have a new team member actually come onboard into the role that was using this Plans specifically so seamlessly. She could interpret it very easily and she knew exactly where to pick up where the other staff member left off.