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Thank you NTEN, We Loved it!
With our current state of affairs in the U.S., it is easy to wake up each day dejected and pessimistic about the future.
But for 3 days last week, I woke up knowing I would be heading to the annual Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN) conference. Detractors may say we were in a bubble, surrounding ourselves with idealism run amok, but for 3 days I saw everything that is great, compassionate and hopeful about our country. I met hundreds of people who choose to devote their work life to putting the needs of others before themselves – they deserve far more recognition then they get.
While the NTEN attendees are on the front lines fighting their battles, we at Grassroots Unwired strive to be the support behind the scenes they can use to make their efforts more efficient and effective. Technology can be a great equalizer across society and our goal is to make sure it supports those who fighting the good fight so admirably and selflessly. It is humbling to have even a small opportunity to be a part of this.
If you were there and we didn’t have a chance to speak:
It was a pleasure to be a part of the NTEN conference and we not only look forward to being their next year but participating in their events all year long.
NTEN
Grassroots Unwired is pleased to announce that for the first time, we will be at NTEN’s Non-profit Technology Conference.
Come see what all the buzz is about our technology. We’ll be happy to show you in person how we can upgrade your face-to-face program or advocacy work with our amazing features.
Visit us at Booth 709
(by the Cafe)
See our mobile app in action and sign a petition telling Members of Congress to fully fund Meals-on-Wheels.
For every petition signed, Grassroots Unwired will make a donation to:
If you are not able to come see us in person, request a demo or sign-up for our newsletter.
Grassroots Unwired offers a mobile-first platform for nonprofits doing face-to-face outreach, advocacy, and fundraising. Reach people where they are, capture everything, and grow your movement.
Bar Codes and You
The Ballot Initiative Strategy Center held its annual conference in Las Vegas last week and Grassroots Unwired participated in the New Tools Shoutout where 16 organizations vied for the prize of Best New Tool from 2016.
Using a real-life use case from Fieldworks, we won the hearts and minds of the audience and emerged victorious with a sweet new water bottle as the prize.
Petition drives can be about so much more then getting on the ballot – if you have the right tools. Use our Barcode tool to tie the Petition signer back to the form they signed along with the GPS location and time that the signature was collected and the name of the canvasser who collected it.
Then leverage our tech to quickly collect more useful information that you can turn into real-time action:
- Collect email addresses and cell phone numbers to instantly engage the signers after the interaction with customized SMS opt-ins and emails
- Have them sign a digital pledge card that can be sent to them as a reminder closer to the election
- Sign them up for volunteer opportunities and upcoming events
- Protect your reputation and your effort with Quality Control metrics like:
- Time on Turf for each canvasser
- GPS and Time Stamps for each interaction
- Length of time it takes to complete each survey
Now more then ever, ballot initiatives are a critical way to push your agenda and fight against legislative overreach. You want to know when, where and how every signature you get was collected and walk away with actionable data that will enhance your campaign efforts far beyond the petition drive.
Get in touch with us to learn how the Grassroots Unwired mobile platform can make this a reality for you and your organization.
[slideshare id=71868919&doc=barcodesandyou-170207155301]
Grassroots Unwired Brings Unique Mobile Tech To the 2017 Homeless Census
Grassroots Unwired Brings Unique Mobile Tech To the 2017 Homeless Census
Mobile software company Grassroots Unwired is teaming up with Continuums of Care (CoC) led by local non-profits to transition HUD’s (Housing and Urban Development) yearly homeless census from paper and clipboards to tablet powered mobile software. These “Point-in-Time” (PIT) counts typically take place late in January over one or several nights, and the results are used by HUD to determine funding levels for a community’s homeless advocacy problems.
The need for accurate data, collected efficiently was the driving force behind the technology built by Grassroots Unwired. Building on successful 2016 pilots in Houston and Philadelphia, Grassroots Unwired will be expanding its partnerships to areas in California and Indianapolis. In partnership with the Coalition for the Homeless in Houston, Project HOME and Valley Youth House in Philadelphia, Grassroots Unwired perfected a mobile app that allows volunteers to press and swipe answers to survey questions instead of fumbling with the a paper and clipboard at night.
This app not only digitizes the HUD driven survey but gives the site managers an ability to monitor volunteers who go on-site which helps insure safety and accurate data collection. The fact that the app works with or without a data connection means that volunteers can continue to do their work in low connectivity areas like subway stations.
After the count is over, days of manual data entry are eliminated because all the data collected in the field is databased in real time the night of the count. And with paper, there was always the possibility of a poorly written survey leading to disqualifying an individual from the count. Communities could lose large sums of public funding if their Homeless census data is not accurate.
HUD requires this data to be reported in order to determine public funding that gets provided to each community to support public programs. Non-Profits will train and send volunteers to Emergency Shelters; Transitional Housing Units; Rapid Re-housing Programs; Safe Haven’s; and Permanent Supportive Housing Programs along with known areas where unsheltered individuals live to perform the surveys. While the survey has some standard questions required by HUD, many non-profits offer additional services and use the customizable nature of the platform to design scripts that are specific to their own programs.
For Grassroots Unwired, the ability to build technology that can make a social impact is why the company was founded. Said CEO Russ Oster, “So many of these folks just need a helping hand. And if our technology, used by awesome organizations like Project Home, can speed up the delivery of that help, then we’re honored to be a part of the effort.”
Sierra Club is using Grassroots Unwired to Generate Absentee Ballot Requests
We recently partnered with The Sierra Club’s Georgia Chapterwho has devised a plan to contact voters and make it easy for them to fill out an absentee ballot request form. Canvassers are going door-to-door, talking to people about upcoming election choices and helping them with their voter plan. Unlike past cycles, this year they made the switch from carrying around paper walk sheets and dozens of voter registration and absentee ballot request forms to our platform.
By using the Grassroots Unwired platform , canvassers can have voters fill out the absentee ballot request form on a tablet. They can even sign it digitally, and have it sent automatically to the appropriate county registrar’s office in Georgia. By switching to the Grassroots Unwired platform , ballot requests are more accurate and since the , the whole process is paperless, the data collected is saved securely in the database.
The ability to vote by absentee ballot is an essential part of modern elections. For those who cannot get to the polls for health, work, or extended travel reasons, it allows them the opportunity to have their voices heard in elections ranging from local to national.
The collaboration between The Sierra Club and Grassroots Unwired has provided a possibly underserved or marginalized voter group with an opportunity for both personal contact to learn about their choices and a chance to take action on issues that might be to interest to them sponsored by the Sierra Club.
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Homeless Outreach
Using new tech to survey Philly’s homeless youth
A new initiative to better track data and respond to the growing homeless youth population in Philadelphia is using digital device to improve their count logistics.
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Generocity.org: APP NOW ACCELERATING NONPROFIT EFFORTS
http://www.generocity.org/grassroots-unwired-app-now-accelerating-nonprofit-efforts/
The former DreamIt Ventures startup is offering their mobile and web app services to local nonprofits.
Nonprofit door-to-door organizers know just how time-consuming data entry can be out in the field. Ringing doorbell after doorbell, hoping someone answers. Once someone does, you spend most of the time explaining who you’re representing and what your mission is. Then you maybe hand out some literature that gives more detail. After all that, you have to make time to ask for donations or a signature.
If you’re lucky, the person on the other side of that screen door will shell out some cash or a check, while you bring out your handy clipboard and jot down the essentials — name, home address and email of the donor, including the donation amount.
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. You only have so many hours of sunlight until it’s time to pack up and start again in the morning.
This might leave you saying, “There’s got to be an app for that.”
There is.
It’s called Grassroots Unwired. The startup, founded by self-described ex-political campaign warrior Russ Oster, was part of the 2011 DreamIt Ventures class. The app helps canvassers expedite and better organize their efforts through mobile technology.
When the app was first created, the startup was strictly geared towards working with political campaigns across the country.
“That was mostly our focus initially, giving political campaigns the tools they needed to get off of clipboards while going door to door,” Oster said.
But after the 2012 election season, the app started to get some inbound interest from groups doing organizing work. Oster said that his platform wasn’t quite ready to take on nonprofits at the time, but the startup saw the potential and had always intended on expanding to that market.
Grassroots Unwired began building and implementing better and more efficient features, such as uniquely developed credit card processing, signature gathering and email generation.
After receiving $100,000 in seed money from Ben Franklin Technology Partners last June, the now Bristol-based company began piloting potential clients. While they’re still refining the product and making sure it has all the bells and whistles canvassers and organizers need, they’re just about ready to make their official foray into the nonprofit world.
Here’s what the app will have for nonprofits:
- A mapping tool that creates “turfs.” Canvassers in the field can view a map of the area they’ve been assigned to. Organizers upload a list of addresses, which are then geocoded and put into a map that draws out the targeted area.
- Scripts. This can display marketing materials such as PDFs or videos that help tell the story of the nonprofit seeking a donation or action.
- Email. This sends a thank-you letter, information and a receipt to the donor you just interacted with, almost immediately after they close the door.
- PCI-compliant credit card swiper. This technology is unique to Grassroots Unwired. It has developed a way to set up recurring payments, which is something you can’t get with Square or Intuit.
“It’s great to get a $10 donation on one day, but if you can convince that person to do that monthly or quarterly or annually, you’re way ahead of the game,” Oster said. The credit card data is encrypted and is not accessible until the agreed donation date is set.
Beginning this May, the services will be piloted nationally with the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. According to Oster, that includes over 45 offices across the country with over 1000 people out in the field per day.
“Then we had this idea,” said Oster. “We’re based in Philly, we love that we started the company in Philly and think the city’s got so much going for it — let’s try to build a critical mass around here by giving folks an opportunity [to try out our services].”
Starting this month, Grassroots Unwired is offering a one-month free trial of their services to local Philadelphia nonprofits. After the trial, nonprofits will need to pay $80 per head out in the field.
Oster said the responses so far have been positive.
“[Nonprofits’] average dollar contributions are dramatically higher because they’re now able to accept credit cards in a safe and PCI-compliant way,” he said. It has also eliminated office work, which Oster said has provided an opportunity for nonprofits to be out in the field rather than doing data entry in the office.
“One client last summer completely eliminated overtime for their office staff,” Oster said.
Image via Grassroots Unwired
Posted by Tony Abraham on April 16, 2015
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Free Pilot for Philly Nonprofits
For Immediate Release Contact: Russ Oster
March 30, 2015 609-439-1463
GRASSROOTS UNWIRED OFFERING PHILLY TECH TO PHILLY NON-PROFITS
Just Released from Beta, Start-Up Giving Free One-Month Access
BRISTOL, PA – Grassroots Unwired, a Philadelphia area start-up providing mobile technology for grassroots organizing, is announcing the public launch of its software aimed at supporting the activities of non-profits, by offering a free, one-month trial of their organizing and fundraising platform to Philadelphia area non-profits.
“We’re proud to have started our company in Philadelphia and proud of the work we have done to get our platform to the point it is today,” said Grassroots Unwired CEO Russ Oster. “It’s been put through its paces by some of the largest non-profits in the country and now that it is ready for broad use, we couldn’t think of a better way to launch then by helping local non-profits take their organizing efforts to the next level.”
While the Grassroots Unwired platform has been supporting political campaigns since 2012, the non-profit tools that are now being offered did not come into focus until May 2014, when The Public Interest Research Group (PIRG – http://www.fundforthepublicinterest.org), one of the largest non-profit fundraising organizations in the country, started a pilot aimed at getting their fundraisers off of clipboards and onto the Grassroots Unwired platform. From there came several other pilots with national organizations and their affiliates, such as Clean Water Action, the Wilderness Alliance, and Planned Parenthood.
Said Oster, ”It was immediately obvious that the transition to our platform was making a huge difference for our pilot clients. Overall the results have been striking – leading to more donors with higher average dollar contributions and more new members taking more action on behalf of the cause – not to mention the increased efficiencies in the management of these efforts.”
The one month free trial is available to nonprofit organizations in the Philadelphia region, including South Jersey and Delaware.
Interested organizations can contact Jordan Tenedora at Jordan@grassrootsunwired.com. Learn more about the new tools here: http://www.grassrootsunwired.com/advocacy
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Startup helps non profits
Article from Philly Daily News:
Startup helps nonprofits become efficient in a 21st-century world:
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On Election Day, why wait for turnout numbers at 10am/2pm/5pm?
Now you can turn your EDay office into a real time War Room with Grassroots Unwired
Real Time Voter Check-Off
Use our IPhone/Android mobile app to track raw turnout numbers or the names of those who have voted – either way, you’ll have the data as soon as it’s entered into a phone. And if you do place ‘checkers’ inside the polls then the voters marked as voted will be sent to your phone banks and your canvassers in real time so that they don’t waste time and you don’t waste money contacting people who have already voted.
Heat maps will show trends in real time.
If precincts are trending red, you’ll know to focus your GOTV resources there. Then watch them turn blue as the real time data you are collecting allows you to command your War Room like the General that you are!
Design charts and graphs to show aggregate turnout numbers against the campaign’s expected turnout.
Drill down further to see raw data coming in from individual counties and individual precincts within those counties.