Remote collaboration is the key for having a successful mutual aid organization, as St. Paul’s Salisbury Food Service learned recently. This community help group managed their daily workload with Zelos, achieving more impact during the COVID-19 pandemic without having to increase their number of employees or volunteers.
Turning 30 minutes into a week of impact
St. Paul’s Salisbury is a UK-based church that managed its own food service during 18 weeks of lockdown, delivering groceries to many families and vulnerable people. Just like other mutual aid groups, St. Paul’s Salisbury volunteer workforce is small. In order to make the most out of their members’ available time, all of their tasks had to be carefully planned and assigned. This is where Zelos came in to save the day.
A single coordinator spent less than half an hour every week setting up tasks in Zelos friendly interface. Congregation members received these tasks instantly and then they chose which ones to do. This allowed everyone to fit their tasks around their personal schedule, without needing to involve the group coordinator.
“It was easy to enter tasks , see who my team were and where the gaps were. The announcement aspect allowed me to encourage and motivate the team, keeping them in touch with the mission!”
-Kerry Badger, Community Pastor
St Paul’s Church, Salisbury
Some of the tasks St. Paul’s Salisbury Food Service managed with Zelos were:
- Shopping and collecting food.
- Sorting food donations.
- Food deliveries.
- Prescribed medications deliveries.
- Coordinate the making and delivery of birthday cakes.
- Dog walking (because pets are part of the community too!).
Inspiring people on-the-go
In the age of remote collaboration, it is a challenge to keep teammates inspired and engaged. St. Paul’s Salisbury used Zelos announcement feature to share results of their work and profiles about the people they were serving. This helped to update everyone about the impact they were making and encourage them as they through their daily tasks.
“Using your system we were able to coordinate all these volunteers. We could not have done it without you! It was a great way to get a whole community involved in supporting others.”
-Kerry Badger, Community Pastor
St Paul’s Church, Salisbury
The results in numbers are inspiring on their own. By using Zelos, St. Paul’s Salisbury distributed in three months over 6.5 tons of food to more than 2,000 people in their immediate community. And they managed to do it with less than 50 volunteers!
Change can start with one click
People working in mutual aid groups, food delivery services, and food banks can benefit from learning the best practices of St. Paul’s Salisbury, which include:
- Keeping track of tasks, people, and results.
- Communicating good news and current challenges to the entire team.
- Dividing big jobs into smaller, more manageable ones.
- Having a single platform for task management (they used Zelos!).
- Make task management digital, and avoid unnecessary team meetings.
By unbundling big jobs into smaller tasks that are assigned digitally through Zelos, work is turned into a new form of empowerment for volunteers and employees alike. This new form of chairmanship also combines instant communication and real effectiveness, which makes it best suited for church volunteer management and food bank volunteer management.