Beth, Executive Director & Founder
“The N Solutions’ approach is truly client focused and one of collaboration. With their expertise, N Solutions transformed and streamlined our administrators’ processes and helped us better communicate our impact with stakeholders.”
Summary
At N Solutions, we have a passion for working with Non-Profits and affording them access to the same consulting services many for-profit companies leverage. Buddy Up for Life is an organization our Co-Founder, Jen, has been an active volunteer with for over six years, so it was a great opportunity for us to share our experience and with an organization that means a lot to us.
Client Background
Buddy Up for Life was started in 2008 by a mother, Beth Gibson, who was motivated to give her son, Will, who has Down syndrome, the same access to learn tennis as other children have. Beth along with one coach and one buddy volunteer quickly realized there was a void in service to individuals with Down syndrome, so they stepped in and started filling that void. The first Buddy Up Tennis clinic was held in December 2008, then expanded to Cincinnati and now there are 25+ chapters of Buddy Up Tennis nationwide. Buddy Up Tennis has now expanded to Buddy Up for Life with adaptive programming spanning cooking, finances, communication, fitness, and more.
Challenges they faced
As Buddy Up for Life grows, the need to track individuals served, volunteer hours, and programming details for all 25+ chapters continue to get more and more complex.
Enter N Solutions:
We started by simply asking Buddy Up for Life where they needed help and how they wanted to use their data. This brought athlete tracking, volunteer tracking, and program administration to the top of the list. We had to keep in mind varying stakeholders – the organization’s Program Directors as well as the dozens of Chapter Coordinators – which are mostly volunteers. Both audiences wanted improved visibility and streamlined processes. We were able to deliver:
- Revamped, Digital Forms to facilitate Expense Reimbursements, Equipment and T-Shirt Orders.
- Integrated Data and Attendance tracking to capture legacy and go-forward Athlete and Buddy data and participation. These individual chapters’ trackers now summarize into program-wide reporting making it easier for Buddy Up for Life to identify new trends and report on their combined impact.
The N Solutions Difference:
We were able to deliver improvements within Buddy Up for Life’s existing toolset with no additional software investment required. The improved data capture and reporting will now enable Buddy Up for Life to update their participant pool and apply for future grant opportunities with relevant impacts statements.
