Open Hand Atlanta is using VolunteerHub’s gamification features to engage, retain, and motivate volunteers to provide value through friendly competition.
Providing nourishment, a meal at a time
Open Hand Atlanta, founded in 1988, provides people, suffering from chronic diseases, with nourishment, support, and education. The nonprofit, located in Atlanta, Georgia, collaborates with over 100 partner organizations to positively impact health, well-being, and social services. Open Hand Atlanta is an organization that is truly motivated by the desire to eliminate disability and untimely death due to nutrition-sensitive chronic diseases. Open Hand Atlanta prepares, packs, and delivers close to 5,000 meals daily (150,000 per month) and spends over $85,000 per week to obtain food for people who desperately need nourishment and organizational support. Open Hand Atlanta is reaching its goals through several strategic programs that focus on prepared meals, nutrition education, and collaboration projects.
“Our organization is focused on making a substantial impact in the community. Since our inception, we have delivered 30,000,000 meals to the chronically ill, in and around Atlanta,” said Kari Baudoux, Director of Volunteer Services at Open Hand Atlanta
“We are reaching and nourishing the community in a variety of ways including delivering individual meals, catering senior centers, subsidizing grocery lists, and providing food boxes to people in local hospitals,” said Kari
Leveraging volunteer talent
Open Hand Atlanta leverages the skills, commitment, and dedication of 32,000 volunteers, throughout the greater Atlanta area, each year. Volunteers fill a variety of roles including packing and preparing food, delivering meals to clients in need, and providing administrative support during special events. Without the help of thousands of volunteers each year, Open Hand Atlanta would not be able to provide the nourishment, support, and education they have been able to achieve over the last 32 years.
“We wouldn’t be able to provide nourishment to the clients that desperately need our support without the help, dedication, and ongoing commitment of volunteers and the time they invest in our program,” said David Thoms, Volunteer Coordinator at Open Hand Atlanta
Building a Sustainable Volunteer Program
Before implementing VolunteerHub, Open Hand Atlanta used another competing solution to manage volunteers. Their previous volunteer management tool required many manual processes and did not offer the efficiency that the nonprofit organization was looking for in a long-term solution. Open Hand Atlanta wanted a solution that would reduce manual tasks, automate processes, yield efficiency, and enhance volunteer engagement through innovative feature sets. After receiving a demo, the nonprofit organization quickly determined that VolunteerHub provided the best and most efficient solution for their organizational needs.
Open Hand Atlanta quickly saw the benefits that VolunteerHub’s volunteer management software was able to provide. Volunteers are now able to see all opportunities and sign up for organizational roles quickly, enhancing Open Hand Atlanta’s recruitment/retention strategy. The organization can also quickly run reports, measure impact, and manage its program, without the need for additional tools.
“Implementing VolunteerHub has allowed our team to spend more time connecting with volunteers and less time on administrative tasks. We are big supporters of VolunteerHub and the efficiency that the solution provides,” said Kari
“We love Admin 2.0 and the new capabilities that VolunteerHub has included in the update. It is pretty clear that the VolunteerHub team is listening to the voice of their clients,” said David
Promoting engagement with gamification
One VolunteerHub feature that has helped Open Hand Atlanta’s team enhance its volunteer program and position it for the future is gamification. Open Hand Atlanta used VolunteerHub to create their Open Hand LeaderTree initiative, an innovative, gamification-based program, to promote friendly competition, provide volunteers with rewards, and positively impact both engagement and retention. The program works by providing volunteers with points for each of the opportunities that they fill. These points can be exchanged for prizes. Even though LeaderTree is a new initiative, started in 2019, Open Hand has already realized the benefits and is projecting savings of over $649,656 when considering volunteer value and how the program is helping to retain and promote volunteers to fill organizational opportunities.
“VolunteerHub’s software made it very easy for our organization to launch the LeaderTree program and begin to provide volunteers with new incentives to provide our organization their time. We are already projecting big gains, in terms of value, from our gamification initiative” said David
Open Hand Atlanta will continue to adapt and optimize their volunteer program and support offering until all who are suffering from chronic diseases, in their community, are provided the nourishment they need.
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