Zennify is a customer-centric cloud solutions consulting, implementation and development company. We partner with clients to create high-touch customer engagement platforms, bring clarity and purpose to business transformations, and fuel productivity and innovation across their organizations.
At Zennify, we believe in the power of doing good. Through our internal Zenn for Good initiative, we empower employees to give back to their communities, both personally and professionally. Our volunteer program forges partnerships with local nonprofits to provide a range of services—from pro bono Salesforce implementations to in-person volunteering. Zenn for Good’s goal is to create long-lasting relationships with the vital organizations that make our communities better places to live.
To kick off 2020, Zennify selected the Saint John’s Program for Real Change as one of our Zenn for Good projects. Saint John’s began serving the Sacramento region’s homeless population in 1985, when 20 women and children were found sleeping on its church steps. Since that time, Saint John’s Program for Real Change has evolved from an emergency shelter into an up-to-18-month comprehensive residential program for women and children.
Saint John’s Program doesn’t simply address the symptoms of homelessness. It tackles its root causes head-on. The program provides wrap-around services including mental health therapy, addiction counseling, high school diploma paths, hands-on employment and job readiness training, job placement assistance and life skills coaching (parenting, anger management, domestic violence education, financial literacy and more).
To date, Saint John’s has helped transform the lives of more than 30,000 women and children, enabling them to break the cycle of poverty and dependence once and for all. Ninety-six percent of Saint John’s Employment Training Program graduates have moved from depending on public assistance (at $529 per month) to independently earning an average income of $2,508 per month. In this way, Saint John’s Program helps formerly homeless families become gainfully employed members of their community.
Recognizing the importance of Saint John’s work, Zennify seized the opportunity to help the organization upgrade its technology infrastructure, increase its efficiency and ultimately, boost its impact on the community.
During joint discovery sessions, the Zenn for Good team studied Saint John’s internal processes—from client intake to exit—as well as the obstacles the organization faced. Saint John’s was using Salesforce Classic as its CRM system, but lacked a dedicated Salesforce administrator and wasn’t utilizing the platform’s capabilities as efficiently as it could. With a great deal of data residing in disparate systems, Saint John’s needed a way to unify that data to create a 360-degree view of its clients. In short, they were a perfect fit for the Zenn for Good initiative.
It was clear to the Zenn for Good team that Saint John’s needed to upgrade to the Salesforce Lightning platform. Together, Zennify and Saint John’s designed and executed an upgrade project focused on three key areas. First, the team cleaned up Salesforce fields and workflows, making the system simpler and easier to use for Saint John’s volunteers. Next, Zennify created customized reports and dashboards, giving Saint John’s staff access to the statistics they need to apply for future funding. Finally, the team trained Saint John’s administrative staff on the Salesforce Lightning platform, empowering them to maintain the system going forward.
Thanks to these improvements, Saint John’s can now conduct its day-to-day operations more efficiently than ever, with easy access to all of the data its staff and volunteers need to carry out their inspiring work. Zennify was proud to partner with Saint John’s on this project, and we look forward to continuing our meaningful partnership in the future.
Saint John’s currently serves up to 270 women and children daily—but has a waitlist of over 250 families. Your help is needed now more than ever. To learn more about the Program for Real Change, visit http://saintjohnsprogram.org.
