In an increasingly digital-first world, it’s important to be able to collaborate effectively with our global team of volunteers to maximize impact and efficiency, but how do we do that effectively? What are the right tools for us today and tomorrow? What about next year, or five years from now?

Working with a limited budget, we’ve been creative with our tooling, using a variety of off-the-shelf collaboration and communication apps. We knew we needed someone to research available tools (CRM, project management, etc.) and design a cohesive plan for our technology infrastructure, so we can spend more time creating a socially resilient world, and less time managing technology. We put out a call for someone to help with this effort on VolunteerMatch and hoped for the best!

Enter Sharan Subramanian & Nirav Kanthed, two high school students from the San Francisco bay area, who volunteered to help research what types of digital infrastructure tool sets were available and what would work for our growing organization. Sharan and Nirav delivered in a big way, helping us narrow our list of non-profit focused CRM and technology solutions from thirty two down to just one for our immediate needs!

Curious about what they found? Read about it here, or watch the presentation here.

After a short thirty minute discussion, we decided to move forward with a trial period using Zoho Projects & Zoho CRM!

Thank you to Sharan and Nirav!