Bellyful find the right volunteers through HelpTank

When Bellyful New Zealand needed volunteers to help to select a new donor management database, they turned to HelpTank.

Bellyful provides meals for families with newborn babies and families with young children who are struggling with illness. A donor database would give Bellyful a single repository for all supporter and donor information, and help strengthen their relationship with these supporters.

Chief Executive Charlotte Delahunty listed the database project on HelpTank and found two expert volunteers to join the project team of five.

HelpTank is an online platform that matches community organisations with people wanting to volunteer their skills, knowledge or professional expertise.

“Everyone in the team pitched in with their skills” says Charlotte. Together they drew on their experience in business analysis, IT systems, donor management and project management to review products that could meet Bellyful’s needs, and made a recommendation to the Board. Bellyful is now in the process of implementing a new database.

“HelpTank provided access to volunteers with the expert knowledge needed for this project. Without the volunteers it would not have been possible.”

One of those volunteers was Kristy McDonald who brought her skills and experience in project management to the team. Kristy had been looking for a way to volunteer but wasn’t sure how, until she heard about HelpTank.

When she registered as a volunteer, Kristy ticked the boxes of what she was interested in doing, and got an alert when the Bellyful project came up. When Kristy saw the Bellyful project she thought, “yeah, I could do that”.

Whether through her daily work or volunteering, Kristy “gets a real buzz out of making things better”. The Bellyful project has sparked Kristy's interest in further volunteering and potentially exploring something a bit different to what she does in her job. She has already applied for another volunteering opportunity listed on HelpTank.

Kristy was also keen to stay connected with Bellyful, and is now volunteering as part of a team cooking for Bellyful Porirua one evening a month.

Kristy’s advice for people looking for a way to volunteer their expert knowledge and skills in the community - “Go to HelpTank”.

 

Charlotte’s tips for organisations using HelpTank:
• Keep project small and phased
• Be generous with timeframes
• Ensure volunteers have a positive experience
• Understand that circumstances may change and volunteers become unavailable

Photograph: Volunteers Kristy, Mike, Ruth and Arnab