Crawford County Community Christian Help Center (CCCC Help Center) serves neighbors in need across their rural county in Northern Michigan.
CCCC Help Center made the switch from paper records to an electronic system even before Nancy Goodyear stepped into the Director role four years ago. When their initial software was phased out, the alternative offered by the local food bank didn’t provide the robust reporting Goodyear knew their pantry needed to effectively serve clients.
The CCCC Help Center Board needed monthly reports including total client visits, household members, and age ranges. To get this info, Goodyear had to contact the local food bank IT department. They would create a report, send it back to her, and she would download it to share with the Board. This process was so cumbersome that Goodyear approached the Board with a new proposal: give up the free software offered by the food bank and find a low-cost software that offered better reporting and record keeping.
The search began with 8-10 prospective softwares. Most options were too expensive or catered to large institutions like hospitals or prisons. Goodyear narrowed it down to PantrySoft and one other competitor: both looked like they would work and were priced similarly. The reason she chose PantrySoft? “Just the people!” Goodyear explains, “They were super friendly, down to earth, knew what we needed, [and] were eager to get us started.”
The customized reports PantrySoft provides makes tracking demographic data easy. Now, Goodyear can pull the information she needs without a third party. Her team even took the leap to get rid of the old paper files they kept ‘just in case’ because they trust that all the information they need is in PantrySoft. “We haven’t looked back!” says Goodyear.
An added bonus is that their volunteers love the software! Some of their volunteers don’t have a lot of computer experience. They find PantrySoft easy to use and can navigate client registration effectively.
Goodyear has been really impressed with the support at PantrySoft. During implementation, she explained what was needed in her reports to the local food bank, and the onboarding team created it for her. “The support has just been incredible!” exclaims Goodyear. Any time she has a question, she gets an answer quickly – no waiting a week just to hear back from someone. She also likes participating in the Q&A webinars and hearing from other organizations using PantrySoft to help people. Goodyear concludes: “We love this software program and the people behind it.”