David Washington has been running Southside Community Partners, a nonprofit focused on food security and youth mentoring on Chicago's South Side, for twelve years. The organization coordinates hundreds of volunteers across food drives, tutoring sessions, community cleanups, and mentoring programs. Managing all of that was, as David puts it, "organized chaos at best."
The Problem
"We had a Google Sheet with volunteer names, a shared calendar for events, email chains for coordination, and a filing cabinet for background check records," David explains. "When you're coordinating 200 people across 15 events a month, that system breaks down fast."
The specific pain points were:
- **Scheduling**: Matching volunteer availability to event needs was a manual puzzle. David's coordinator spent 10+ hours a week just on scheduling.
- **Communication**: Event updates went out via email. Volunteers would miss messages, show up at wrong times, or not know about schedule changes.
- **Tracking**: Grant applications require data on volunteer hours, impact metrics, and participation trends. David's team would spend weeks compiling this from scattered records.
- **Onboarding**: New volunteers required orientation scheduling, background checks, skill assessments, and training completion. The process was tracked in a Word document.
They'd tried VolunteerHub and SignUpGenius, but these tools handled sign-ups only — they didn't address the coordination, tracking, and reporting needs.
Building HandsIn
David learned about Velosyti at a nonprofit technology conference. "The presenter showed how a community organization built a member management system in a day. I thought about our volunteer coordination nightmare and decided to try it."
He described the core system: "A platform where volunteers create profiles with their skills and availability. Staff can create events, specify volunteer needs by role, and the system helps match available volunteers to open slots. Volunteers get notifications about matching opportunities and can sign up with one click. Everything is tracked for reporting."
The first version took about four hours to generate. David and his operations coordinator spent two weeks refining it:
- Built an onboarding pipeline that tracks each step from application to active volunteer
- Added skill-based matching (volunteers with cooking experience get matched to food bank events, tutors get matched to youth programs)
- Created automatic hour tracking — volunteers check in and out of events via the app
- Built a grant reporting dashboard that generates participation stats, demographic breakdowns, and impact metrics on demand
- Added a volunteer recognition system — milestone badges, annual hour awards, and shoutouts
The Transformation
HandsIn launched in spring. The transition from spreadsheets was surprisingly smooth — most volunteers were excited about the mobile-friendly sign-up experience.
"The first month, we filled 95% of our volunteer slots. Before HandsIn, we were averaging 70%. The notification system makes it so easy for volunteers to see what's available and sign up immediately."
The grant reporting transformation was the most dramatic improvement. "What used to take our team two weeks of data compilation now takes five minutes. I click 'generate report,' select the date range, and HandsIn produces a PDF with every metric our funders ask for."
The Numbers
In the first year with HandsIn:
- Active volunteer base grew from 200 to 340 (better experience attracted more sign-ups)
- Event fill rates increased from 70% to 95%
- Coordinator scheduling time dropped from 10+ hours/week to about 2 hours
- 28,000 volunteer hours tracked automatically
- Grant reporting time reduced from weeks to minutes
"Our impact doubled without adding staff," David says. "We're running more events, reaching more families, and our volunteers are happier because the experience is smoother."
Paying It Forward
David presented HandsIn at a Chicago nonprofit coalition meeting. Six other organizations expressed interest. He's now working on a version that other nonprofits can use, with customizable event types and volunteer role definitions.
"Nonprofits are always the last to get good technology because we can't afford enterprise software. AI-powered tools change that equation completely. If a grassroots org on the South Side of Chicago can have custom software, anyone can."