Nourishment Now is a humanitarian food aid organization that aims to address food insecurity by arranging packaging events of nutritious meals, and transporting those meals to local food pantries and overseas partners.

In 2015, Nourishment Now packaged over 1 million meals!  An amazing accomplishment, especially for a completely volunteer-run organization.  But as requests for meal packaging events increased, Nourishment Now didn’t have the ability to scale internally to meet the growing needs of their constituents.  Some of the challenges were:

• No clear fundraising strategy.  Since most meal-packaging events were paid for by a sponsoring organization, Nourishment Now rarely focused on fundraising.  With limited funds, Nourishment Now had little money to scale or even build the necessary infrastructure that helps nonprofits run effectively (technology, clerical help, marketing, etc.).
• Disparate Systems.  Nourishment Now’s online donor data was tracked in the credit card merchant’s system, check donations were tracked in spreadsheets, and volunteer data was tracked in various online sign-up forms, or not tracked at all.  There was no clear and cohesive picture of who their supporters were.
• Outdated Technology.  Nourishment Now’s website had not been maintained in years.  It was cluttered, outdated, and just became a repository of photos from events, as opposed to a tool to educate and engage constituents on Nourishment Now’s work.  Even though the majority of the volunteers were millennials, aside from a semi-private facebook group to announce events, there was no social media activity or strategy.
• Communications.  Aside from a periodic newsletter, there was limited communication with donors, partners, or volunteers.  Volunteers would show up for events, but rarely hear back from Nourishment Now afterwards.

Collectively, our goal for Nourishment Now was to become a constituent-centered organization, to know more about every donor, volunteer, partner, and stakeholder so they can build a community around their work.  By doing so, it would open up opportunities for engaging more volunteers, securing more donations, and scaling their mission.  Through a series of workshops and strategic planning in 2017, OneTenth helped address some of the challenges above through the following:

• Finalized a strategic plan, identifying Nourishment Now’s objectives and key results for the coming year.
• Developed a fundraising strategy, primarily using email, social media, and at-event appeals.
• Implemented a low-cost donor manage system (Fundly CRM) to manage all constituents (donors, volunteers, partners, stakeholders) giving a 360-degree view of Nourishment Now’s constituents
• Revamped Nourishment Now’s website with a modern and responsive design (using Squarespace), and started a blog to keep content fresh and informative.
• Integrated online donation and volunteer registration forms to Nourishment Now’s website, allowing all data to flow directly in to Fundly CRM
• Developed and implemented a social media strategy for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram with regular posts of original and curated content on food security and the partners Nourishment Now serves.
• Developed and delivered engaging newsletters (through Fundly CRM) to ensure constituents were updated with all of Nourishment Now’s activities and events.

With Nourishment Now being a volunteer-run organization with limited expertise in technology and social media, OneTenth stayed on to be the Fundly CRM System Administrator (developing reports and dashboards to track organizational health and develop system enhancements) and to manage Nourishment Now’s social media accounts and communication initiatives.

OneTenth’s “soup to nuts” approach with its services helped transform Nourishment Now, cementing a new foundation as a constituent-centered organization. ~

The SevaTruck Foundation is a non-profit organization launched in 2016 dedicated to reducing hunger in our communities by serving hot, nutritious meals to anyone in need for free.  SevaTruck operates a fully licensed food truck with a commercially integrated kitchen, and primarily serves to partner organizations in the Washington, D.C. metro area with plans to expand nationally.

SevaTruck’s first year was a whirlwind!  With its unique model, it gained significant interest from partner organizations, collaborators, and donors.  In 2017 alone, SevaTruck served 12,154 meals and launched its second truck in the Detroit metro area.  With SevaTruck’s focus primarily on food preparation, logistics for events, and corresponding with partners, little focus was put in to the systems and infrastructure needed to run an effective nonprofit.  In early 2017, SevaTruck contacted OneTenth to implement Salesforce and its Nonprofit Success Pack as its CRM platform, initially to track donors and donations.  But as SevaTruck looks to the future, recognizing their internal constraints, they have consulted OneTenth to do the following:

• Guide SevaTruck board members and advisors on a business strategy, developing key objectives for the next 1-3 years with measurable objectives.
• Map the business strategy to a fundraising strategy, identifying all the fundraising streams and channels required to support SevaTruck’s work i.e. grants, major gifts, online giving, offline giving, sponsorships, workplace giving, etc.
• Develop a plan for volunteer engagement.  Rather than simply having volunteers come and go, OneTenth aims to create a volunteer engagement plan that builds a community of engaged resources around SevaTruck’s work
• Develop a technology plan.  Research and evaluate tools and applications to improve and enhance SevaTruck’s operations.  This also includes extending Salesforce to support the strategies above.

Recognizing the importance of setting a strong foundation for their nonprofit to thrive, while balancing current resource limitations, SevaTruck has retained OneTenth in an Executive Director/Development Director capacity, responsible for implementing the business and fundraising strategy above.

OneTenth is excited to play a critical role in taking SevaTruck to the next level, expanding their services and strengthening their impact. ~