Is an App in Your Org's Future?

Milkcrate CEO Morgan Berman

A big part of what we do at The Greater Sum Foundation is provide assistance for nonprofit professionals navigating the world of program management and we want to help you find practical solutions to increase efficiency and impact. Which is why we have asked Morgan Berman, founder and CEO of MilkCrate to share some case studies and industry knowledge with us. MilkCrate helps nonprofits build a unique mobile app for their organization or cause, so she is the perfect person to talk about how mobile technology is helping the nonprofit sector navigate engagement during these remote and contactless weeks, months, but hopefully not years and how this embracing of technology will serve organizations after the pandemic is long over.

Questions When Considering An App 

1. Does your organization run a program for an existing group or groups of participants? Is your staff stretched* serving them all at once? If your organization is already running a program - either for volunteers, members, students, or program participants- great! That is the first and most important step. *”Stretched” can be relative. Organizations have launched apps for programs with 20 people in them or 5,500+ users. It depends. The definition depends on you - how many is too many for you to keep track of using the methods you currently have in place?

2. Do you need to reach participants or volunteers regularly?

Ok, so you are running a program - great! But perhaps you are struggling to engage all those people - with the reminders to sign up for events, or report back about their experience in the program, or to track their volunteer hours. Usually this kind of communication and tracking becomes really hard without the right tools when you have 50+ individuals. The number changes for each organization.

3. Are there specific activities for participants to do on an ongoing basis?

These activities can include things like: watching videos, listening to a podcast, using a directory to find resources, signing up for an event, going to locations, reading content etc. But just as important is making sure the right users see the right activities - which is why being able to segment users is such a valuable approach.

4. Is your leadership data driven? Do your funders care about tracking success?

Your funders and other stakeholders look to you to ensure that the mission of the organization is being reached via your program data - both qualitative and quantitative. And you agree that they are key to demonstrating impact. You see an app as a way to unlock that data and manage your programs well.

Ok so an app might make sense, but what exactly should that app do? Here are some ideas:

Mobile technology for Volunteer Engagement

Organizations that revolve around volunteers like Youth Volunteer Corps benefit from digital tools like an online calendar for users to learn about events and volunteer opportunities. Now that they have an app, the staff’s time is not being taken up by tracking volunteer participation or manually on-boarding volunteers, and they have more time to focus on long-term goals for their organization. Even better, GPS tracking allows users to operate the “check-in” feature to confirm their presence at a volunteer event, which makes attendance tracking easy and verifiable. Users can also leave comments and reviews about an event or volunteer opportunity, providing effortless feedback. 

Live Digital Interaction 

Organizations that focus on bringing people together as a community to communicate and learn from one another especially benefit from chat tools. Nonprofits such as World Savvy and Philly Start Up Leaders use mobile apps to engage with the other participants in their program to share and learn from each other. A social feed feature is a great tool for this purpose, allowing users to share thoughts, questions or photos and interact with one another through comments.  These data points can be used to better understand how your participants are staying engaged and to capture real-time authentic interactions.

Helpful Reminders Right to Your Participants’ Phones

Many organizations are limited to communicating with participants through tools that don’t deliver the desired results, like email newsletters with low open rates, or with social media accounts that are built on tools with a “pay-to-boost” business model (learn more about why Facebook groups are not a great fit for nonprofits here) that keeps audience reach low. However, push notifications to mobile phones are a great way to reach your audience instantly and without having to pay extra fees. They can include reminders to fill out a survey, information about an upcoming event, or a heads-up about new content in the app. Every user of the WeVote app received a notification reminding them to vote the day of their election, and Jersey Cares sends out a notification when new volunteer opportunities arise.

Making Programs Fun with Gamification

Many organizations, like Philadelphia Youth Sports Collaborative, use their app to create some healthy competition in the community with gamification features. At PYSC, students complete challenges to win prizes and log their work and also keep track of their friends’ scores. The Wharton School uses its app to keep students fueled to do their part in environmental activism and sustainability practices by rewarding those with highest scores when they log their actions. These incentives create an opportunity for new engagement and overall growth. 

Staying Organized 

An app is not only beneficial for volunteers and program participants, it benefits program staff too. An admin dashboard provides a metrics display to easily share information with stakeholders that updates automatically. Tracking engagement, obtaining feedback, on-boarding volunteers, learning about participant demographics, monitoring progress, etc. -- it shows up all in one place. Along with saving time and resources, there is no easier way to stay organized. These benefits can apply to many types of organizations, from volunteer programs, training programs, youth enrichment, social services and more. 

Custom vs Templated Mobile App Development

We have found that custom development is often far beyond the reaches of most nonprofit budgets. In fact often, when a nonprofit starts to consider a mobile app, they are immediately turned off when they think of the cost and expertise required to undertake a custom app. This is what inspires us to do what we do. Our platform, MilkCrate, allows nonprofits to easily and affordably launch their own mobile app without custom development. We help our clients take their offline program experiences online through a templated and brandable mobile app that deeply engages participants, eliminates paper-intensive administrative overhead, and allows for real-time impact reports. Our clients choose from features that are ready-made and can drag and drop content using our administrative dashboard tool. 

Morgan Berman is the CEO & Founder of MilkCrate, a mission-driven software company serving nonprofits from Alaska to Atlanta to launch their own mobile engagement and tracking app. They are dedicated to increasing efficiency and impact and regularly save organizations tens of thousands of dollars in staff time. To learn more visit www.milkcrate.tech or email morgan@milkcrate.tech for more information.