Thanks to a generous donation from First Church in Berkeley, I was able to begin my paid internship with Strideforce, developing a Salesforce instance for the Latina Center. Friday March 20, 15 was the official kick-off meeting for the Latina Center project. It started out great with introductions of Strideforce and Latina Center staff. During our meeting we were introduced to the great programs and opportunities they provide for the community. One of the many services they provide and the one that impress me the most, is the help they provide to domestic violence victims especially women. The program helps women overcome difficulties and empower them to continue living a happier and healthier life. Another great service they provide is tutoring and mentoring for kids after school so that they stay away from trouble. By the end of the introduction of the services that they provide I was pretty happy that I had the privilege of working with such a great nonprofit institution.
During our meeting I realized their biggest challenge is maintaining data integrity and most importantly in one central Location. Each Latina Center instructor and staff member have their own data, in multiple formats, and each had at least three copies of repeated data that was not current. Making it difficult to import all their data into Salesforce. I kept on repeating in my head Salesforce will fix most of their problems in maintaining data. Other challenges I noticed they do not have an IT person on board to help accommodate their needs and on-going training will be needed to successfully implement Salesforce in their organization. I learned this week, the easiest way to import data into Salesforce is using a third party app by Apsona. Apsona donates their products to nonprofits, so there is no charge for the Latina Center.
The hour and half that we had originally planned went flying by, at the end of the meeting my head was running all over the place trying to figure out the best way to centralize their data and getting Latina Center staff to help us with data integrity. I also realized that the originally 120 hours that I was funded will not be enough to help this wonderful nonprofit. If you would like to support the Latina Center’s mission, along with Strideforce’s mission, please visit Strideforce’s donate page! https://stridelabs.org/sponsor-a-non-profit/
-
- Michele McGeoy offering up strategies to the team.
-
- Miriam expressing the many facets of the Latina Center
-
- The team hitting it off with a chuckle
-
- Gloria, Colleen, and Miriam
-
- Luis understanding the many programs offered by the Latina Center
-
- Miriam Wong and Luis Mora ready to get to work