Centric volunteer Jennifer Elliott helped Crisis Assistance Ministry Gastonia modernize and automate its work to feed the community.
May 19, 2023, Gastonia, N.C. — Jennifer Elliott, a Salesforce solution architect and local service offering lead for Centric Consulting’s Charlotte, N.C., team, recently received one of Apparo’s prestigious Volunteer Appreciation and Impact Awards. Apparo is an organization that matches nonprofits with tech companies that can help them achieve their missions.
Elliott’s award honors her work with Crisis Assistance Ministry Gastonia (CAM). Serving the Gastonia, North Carolina community, CAM is a faith-based nonprofit providing utility, food, rent and mortgage assistance to households in financial crisis.
Apparo assigned Elliott, who had extensive previous experience standing up Salesforce for a large international company, to help CAM implement Salesforce, a leading customer relationship management (CRM) tool.
“Salesforce provides up to 10 free licenses to any 501(c)(3) nonprofit through the Salesforce Power of Us program,” Elliott explained. “It’s a great way for nonprofits with very limited IT resources to realize Salesforce’s many benefits as a CRM. It can help organizations be more productive so employees and volunteers can spend their time on more valuable work.”
For example, CAM uses Salesforce to automate the process of providing both financial and food assistance, which requires extensive documentation that CAM must provide to the government and other providers.
“Now, CAM is completely online,” added Elliott. “It feels good when you can translate the work you do all day into helping an organization that’s so important to our community.”
Following the implementation, Elliott continued volunteering with CAM for ongoing Salesforce support. All her work with the CAM team paid off this February when the agency experienced its busiest month ever.
“Jennifer’s assistance has been vital to our organization, as we have a very small staff and no IT support,” said CAM Executive Director Kim Wheeler. “We recently had one of the busiest months in our 47-year history. The power of what Jennifer and her team have created was on full display, from the efficiency of applying for our clients to our agility to handle the flow and, ultimately, the reporting that allowed us to know day-to-day our financial commitments. Our CRM, built by Jennifer, is a game changer for our agency.”
Elliott hopes that her work inspires others to use their passions and abilities to create positive impacts in their own communities.
“I love sharing what I’m good at with the rest of the world,” Elliott said. “That is truly what I feel most passionate about.”
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