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EvanMartinez's avatar
EvanMartinez
Qrew Elite
5 years ago

Non-Profit Networking: Achieving Your Mission while Faced with Challenge

Welcome to the Non-Profit networking session community thread. Join us here to collaborate with your Non-Profit peers to discuss how they're overcoming common challenges such as: providing transparency to donors, demonstrating impact towards the mission, achieving financial strength in times of economic uncertainty, and doing more with limited resources.

Tell us a bit more about your own experiences in Non-Profit (there are a few example questions below or you can feel free to talk about what is bringing you to the Non-Profit networking session):  

  • What tech gaps have you had trouble filling with traditional point solutions?
  • What types of approaches have you taken to work through these struggles?
  • As a Non-Profit how are you using tech to deliver on your mission?

Also we would love to know a bit more about you, the roundtable can be a great way to network and get to know other builders in your space (some example questions below):

  • If you could have a super power what would it be?
  • What is a song/album that you use to help you get pumped up or focused when taking on a new project?
Interested in other ways you can connect with your fellow Quick Base builders, share your feedback with us, get rewards and Quick Base Swag and open up opportunities to share your own experiences and speak about your work? You can join our Heroes Program right here!

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Evan Martinez
Community Marketing Manager
Quick Base
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empower 2020

6 Replies

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  • SuzanneBudak's avatar
    SuzanneBudak
    Qrew Member
    4 years ago

    Hi Evan,

    Thank you for trying to get some communication going between non-profit organizations using Quick Base. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like anyone replied to you here. I work for a small non-profit graduate school (Erikson Institute in Chicago) and our department provides professional development to teachers of young children. We developed our first app (with Joe Yung) to organize a collection of 1,400 video observations. Our researchers review the videos & complete an evaluation form in Quickbase. Our second app tracks teachers & children participating in a related research study.  The next one we want to build would be for our coaches.  Coaches are like consultants - they conduct visits with teachers at our partner schools & provide them with feedback on their lesson.  We anticipate creating several forms depending on the type of coaching session (planning, observation, reflection) and want to track the content of those conversations.

    But what else?   We've looked at sample apps in QB, but our challenge is often figuring out what they really do & how they work.  We're a bunch of novices who've had some success but could really use some other people to bounce ideas of off.

    If you can think of any threads or users you've interacted with -- please help me connect!

    Thanks,

    Suzanne Budak
    Erikson Institute



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    Suzanne Budak
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    • CullenCoates's avatar
      CullenCoates
      Qrew Trainee
      4 years ago
      Evan
      I appreciate your efforts to bring together the QB non-profit community. As a QSP we have been working with non-profits for 16 years and I know of only one other who has a significant track record in that regard - we partnered at a national conference a few years ago to introduce QB. I think that one of the issue is that QB hasn't officially recognized non-profit as an industry focus so it's a challenge for non-profit prospects to find resources, connections and such. A number of years ago QB featured a non-profit at Empower and raised $10k for them - one of our clients as it happened - but that program was discontinued with the initial sale by Intuit. Hopefully it could be resurrected. It might be interesting to organize a periodic Zoom networking call for non-profits so they could discuss issues of common interest. Let me know how I can help out.

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      Cullen Coates
      cwcoates@crystalbaysolutions.com
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      • EvanMartinez's avatar
        EvanMartinez
        Qrew Elite
        4 years ago
        Hi Cullen,

        The thought of doing a few more zoom meet ups for those interested in meeting others in their industry is something we have been chatting about around the office. A way for us to help people meet and connect knowing that so many live industry events have had to cancel or be put on hold. Non-profit is one where the networking session we had at Empower went really well, and we know it is an industry where it can be hard to find others since they can be so spread out geographically. For the program you mentioned that pre-dates me being at QB a bit but it is certainly something I can look into a bit more. Thanks for reaching out and I'll definitely touch base with you as things take a bit more shape. I would say you should also think about joining up on the Slack channel as well if you haven't. Have a great day!

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        Evan Martinez
        Community Marketing Manager
        Quick Base
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    • EvanMartinez's avatar
      EvanMartinez
      Qrew Elite
      4 years ago
      Hi Suzanne,

      It is great to meet another person in the Non-profit space using QB. We set this chat up to go along with our Non-profit networking session that we did this year for Virtual Empower. Did you get a chance to attend that session Suzanne? There was a speaker who joined and a number of others who took part in breakout groups to discuss things unique to their space and usage of QB. If you didn't you can actually still catch the recording of it right here. It is available on demand right on the agenda if you look under the Networking session.

      Besides that I know we also have a number of the participants in our Slack channel we set up for Empower, that is going to sticking around for a while to help people connect and chat. I just set up a Non-profit channel specifically for networking today since I realized it didn't get set up before with the other industry channels. I would definitely recommend jumping in there and saying hello, I am going to be making sure others know it is there. It is a great place to start building up interest maybe for a future networking session and zoom meet up.

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      Evan Martinez
      Community Marketing Manager
      Quick Base
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  • MikePasquale's avatar
    MikePasquale
    Qrew Member
    4 years ago
    Hey Evan,

    Thanks for creating this space and the Slack Channel.  I'm looking forward to connecting to other non-profits using QB. We have some unique use cases and the opportunity to network with other non-profit leaders around QB is really needed.  I totally "second" everything that Cullen Coats suggested. More Zoom networking sessions would be a great start.

    Center for Community Alternatives is a mid-sized nfp in NYS with 3 locations (NYC, Syracuse and Rochester.)  We've been using QB in our employment programs since 2012 and are working to expand its use agency wide. Currently we are working on an app we can use when we start to re-open (next week!) for contact tracing/health screenings for staff and participants coming to our offices.    We've nearly doubled our users since March (35 to 70) and expect to get to nearly 120 by the end of the year.  So this is a busy time for us and QB!    https://www.communityalternatives.org/

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    Mike Pasquale
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    • MelissaFreel1's avatar
      MelissaFreel1
      Qrew Cadet
      4 years ago
      Hi Evan!
      Thanks for doing this!  I have yet to get into SLACK all the way, so please keep posting in both?  I was part of the non-profit break out and YES I want to spend more time with my nonprofit colleagues on QB. 

      I am employed by Kids' Health Connections (formerly WCHAP, Inc.)  in Detroit which I help start eight years ago.  We are tiny but scrappy. Through community health workers and our Executive Director/Pediatrician we work to connect families in southeastern Michigan to primary care.  We also provide home-based services for asthma and group-based services to combat childhood obesity. 

      • What tech gaps have you had trouble filling with traditional point solutions?---Answer: Most specifically our "electronic charting."  Too many of the off the shelf solutions did not meet our needs to record what was happening with our clients.  Too many of the custom ones were not "customizable" enough and cost way too much money.  I started us on the QB path in 2017 after having previous exposure to it when it was part of Intuit.  We now record data related to more than 4,000 clients in our case management application. 
      • What types of approaches have you taken to work through these struggles?  Answer I became a certified app builder in December 2019 and it has helped "gel" all my learning since we began working with QB. We are a really team-based nonprofit too and having those team member contributions is so important to improving and modifying our applications. 
      • As a Non-Profit how are you using tech to deliver on your mission?  Answer:  With Covid-19, we were able to quickly add a COVID-19 screen within our case management application, like within a couple of days!  No other  SAAS would have been able to respond given the crisis, but being an in-house citizen developer, I was able to move us quickly to this place.  Being a nonprofit in Detroit Michigan, it was beyond critical.

      Because of my success with QB, I have been asked by two other non-profits in Detroit to build QB apps for them.  One is an app to collect data on a homelessness program and the other was an incident response app (with COVID-19 questions) for a community mental health agency.   I don't know where these requests will take me per se, but I have been happy to help my fellow nonprofits "off the side of my desk" and maybe some day this is what I will do full-time.  I would loooovvveee that!

      • If you could have a super power what would it be?  Answer: It's hard to pick one!  Obviously if I could automatically heal the world from COVID-19, climate change, and racism, that would have to be it.  Massive healing powers is my answer.   But maybe collectively we have that superpower, just need to "activate it"!
      • What is a song/album that you use to help you get pumped up or focused when taking on a new project?  Anything from Imagine Dragons right now. 





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      Melissa Freel
      mfreel@khcmi.org
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