Client description
Each month, more than 15,000 people receive hampers from Edmonton’s Food Bank, or one of the over 190 agencies, churches or food depots with which they are affiliated.
Project objective
The Edmonton’s Food Bank (EFB) was looking to update their 15+ years old database to manage complex information about clients, hampers, and drop-off points (known as depots). The new system needed to be flexible (so that the new features can be easily added later, without rebuilding the system), manageable by EFB staff, and adapted to the current reality of supporting a few hundred support calls every day, while maintaining information about each client individual needs and most convenient way to receive help (distance from the local food depot/agencies).
Solution
We implemented an online client management system using Drupal and CiviCRM. By modifying some out-of-the-box functionality, the new system allows Food Bank staff to track information about clients; their relationships between each other (households); history of received food hampers; information about depot locations from which hampers are most often picked-up; and, clients’ dietary and allergic requirements. The system also allows staff and volunteers to coordinate clients with depots and help depots print labels and tracking sheets for each hamper delivery.
Further customizations of searches and reports allow Food Bank staff to run any client searches that are needed to quickly find information about given client history where reports help to keep track of released food hampers and their frequency.
Currently, the system is being used by multiple staff members at the same time, and the database has more than 200,000 client records (and growing).
We are in the process of upgrading their system to Drupal 9 and CiviCRM. As we go into more detail below about their solution, some of the screenshots are from their new interface, which is still a work in progress.