Implementing VolunteerHub has allowed the Metropolitan Area Neighborhood Nutrition Alliance (MANNA) to efficiently recruit, track, and measure their volunteer program, impact, and goals.
Metropolitan Area Neighborhood Nutrition Alliance (MANNA) is a nonprofit on a mission to positively impact the lives of people in their community through food as medicine – preparing and delivering nourishing, medically tailored meals to individuals living with serious illness. MANNA uses nutrition as a way to improve the health of individuals with serious illnesses, who need nourishment to heal. The Philadelphia-based organization wants to empower people to improve their health and overall quality of life. MANNA truly believes that nutrition and food education greatly improve overall health, and the organization has the data to prove it. MANNA’s services have been shown to reduce the healthcare costs of people receiving their support by 31% and hospitalizations were cut in half compared to patients not receiving MANNA services.
MANNA would not be able to provide its life-saving services to the community without the commitment and help of volunteers. Each year, 6500 people volunteer with MANNA – equating to 54,000 hours in donated time. Volunteers provide support in a variety of capacities including preparing, packaging, and delivering nutritious meals. The organization utilizes volunteers to fulfill 90% of the kitchen production each day that the organization is open. MANNA believes in the volunteer philosophy of “neighbors helping neighbors.” With the help of volunteers MANNA has been able to serve 3500 clients, so far in 2019, and has delivered over 1.1 million meals.
“MANNA would not be MANNA without the ongoing support of volunteers,” said JodyAnn Mcintosh, Manager of Community Engagement and Volunteer Services at Metropolitan Area Neighborhood Nutrition Alliance.
Need for a Better Volunteer Management System
Before implementing VolunteerHub, MANNA used a CRM management system to manage its volunteer program. The software was geared towards managing donors and did not adequately provide the organization with the feature set that they needed to recruit, engage, and manage volunteer supporters efficiently. Even though the previous solution provided MANNA with basic information about volunteers, the organization wanted a way to not just create a database of supporters but a systematic way to interact with volunteers regularly. Before using VolunteerHub, there was no standard way for a volunteer to register for an event or kitchen shift – making it challenging to predict if the organization had too many or too few people for each opportunity.
The Best Volunteer Management Solution for MANNA’s Needs
MANNA began looking for a volunteer management software solution because they wanted to create a more organized program and allow volunteers to self-register for opportunities. They also wanted to strategically enhance the way they communicated with volunteers to increase engagement. Before landing on VolunteerHub, MANNA vetted several volunteer management solutions and found that VolunteerHub best aligned with their needs/goals.
“The functionality of our previous solution, for volunteer management, does not even compare to the features VolunteerHub provides and its ability we now have to interact with volunteers,” said McIntosh.
VolunteerHub has Paid for Itself
Today, MANNA is using VolunteerHub in a variety of strategic ways. First, volunteers now can register for opportunities and MANNA can track how many individuals they have available for a given shift, adding transparency to their program and allowing them to adjust based on need. Second, MANNA is using the communication features of VolunteerHub to create reminders, promote opportunities, and thank volunteers for their commitment. Finally, MANNA is using VolunteerHub to break down the barrier between volunteers and donors and create opportunities for supporters to increase giving.
“VolunteerHub paid for itself after 3 months because we saw an increase in volunteer donations after implementing the software,” said McIntosh.
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