How a food bank runs on BARITA.
Shifts are filled, parcels are tracked, and the funders' numbers are ready.
The setting: Four staff and about 120 volunteers, serving around 400 households a week.
It started with one simple request.
“We are a food bank with four staff and about 120 volunteers, serving around 400 households a week. Donations from supermarkets and food drives are logged on paper, families register on paper forms, and volunteer shifts are organised in a group chat, so some shifts are short-handed and others overbooked. …”
Read the whole request
We are a food bank with four staff and about 120 volunteers, serving around 400 households a week. Donations from supermarkets and food drives are logged on paper, families register on paper forms, and volunteer shifts are organised in a group chat, so some shifts are short-handed and others overbooked. We also need to report to our funders every quarter on how many people we helped and what we gave out, which takes days to put together. I want to manage donations and stock, registered households and their weekly parcels, volunteer shifts, and donors, and produce the numbers our funders ask for.
What gets in the way.
Donations from supermarkets and food drives were logged on paper.
Families registered on paper forms.
Volunteer shifts were organised in a group chat, so some were short-handed and others overbooked.
The quarterly report to funders took days to put together.
It was hard to say who had collected a parcel this week and who had not.
Watch the crew take it on.
We are a food bank with four staff and about 120 volunteers, serving around 400 households a week. Donations from supermarkets and food drives are logged on paper, families register on paper forms, and volunteer shifts are organised in a group chat, so some shifts are short-handed and others overbooked. We also need to report to our funders every quarter on how many people we helped and what we gave out, which takes days to put together. I want to manage donations and stock, registered households and their weekly parcels, volunteer shifts, and donors, and produce the numbers our funders ask for.
The request as it was typed.
The requestFill every volunteer shift
The work appears here
How each one is removed.
Donations from supermarkets and food drives were logged on paper.
Each donation is logged with its items, weights and use-by dates, and stock goes up and down as parcels go out.
The app the crew designed
Families registered on paper forms.
A household register holds the members and dietary needs, shown by number so a screen at the counter never shows a family's name.
The app the crew designed
Volunteer shifts were organised in a group chat, so some were short-handed and others overbooked.
The shift board shows every gap and every overbooked shift, and volunteers sign up on their phone.
The app the crew designed
The quarterly report to funders took days to put together.
Pick a quarter and the report shows households and people helped, parcels and food given out and received.
A dashboard for the owner
It was hard to say who had collected a parcel this week and who had not.
Ask how many families were helped, and the answer comes from the weekly parcel records.
A plain question, answered
What this takes off your plate.
The group chat is retired
Volunteers sign up on their phone, and staff see every short-handed and overbooked shift at once.
Funder numbers without the scramble
The quarterly figures come from the records the food bank already keeps, each with a plain definition.
Families' details stay private
Households are listed by number, and details are shown only to the people whose role needs them.
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