Case Studies

Foundations Streamlines Operations with Verdocs

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About Foundations Inc.

In 1992, the Schwartz Foundation created Foundations, Inc., a nonprofit community service organization, to operate afterschool enrichment programs for children and families in underserved neighborhoods. Thirty years later, Foundations has grown and diversified, building and sharing our expertise in learning throughout the day and leading a movement of new thinking about educational innovation and program design.

The Challenge: Existing Operational Practices were Difficult and Outdated

As a nonprofit organization serving the educational needs of young children, Foundations manages three important parties: Parents/students, student tutors, and Foundations. Foundations, as an organization, assist the academic needs of 80-120 students by matching tutors who are paid by Foundations.

Tutors are vetted and onboarded by Foundations and paired with students, who are tutored daily throughout the year. For foundations to pay tutors and for payroll to be run, a “Tutor Log” must be completed and signed by parents, tutors, and Foundations, attesting the students were tutored for the duration of the log. A quick turnaround time is critical for all parties for payroll to be run.

There are multiple challenges in this document workflow. Both parents and tutors are not always tech-savvy, and many don’t have computers. Foundations needed flexibility to meet the abilities of both parents and tutors to have bi-weekly tutoring logs completed on time. Kate DeValerio, Director of Human Resources at Foundations, says:

“We constantly juggle many moving parts between offer letters, internal paperwork, and tutor logs. We needed a centralized solution instead of emails to track all of these moving parts in our operations while having the flexibility our parents and tutors need given the remote nature of student learning.”

The Solution: A flexible and modern eSignature solution

In the summer of 2020, Kate DeValerio began evaluating eSignature solutions in the market. She considered Docusign, PandaDoc, and Adobe Sign and Verdocs. She proceeded with Verdocs because the web platform allowed Foundations the versatility and flexibility it needed to simplify its operations.

Verdocs and Foundations worked closely to optimize the best way to reach parents via in-person links and SMS capabilities. Reusable templates allowed them to avoid rebuilding templates for existing tutors and parents. Parents and tutors were generally unsophisticated with technology, and many lacked computer access. Verdocs made it easy for Foundations to reach them on their mobile devices, enabling them to complete forms in a timely manner.

The Results: Faster Turnaround, Time Savings, Happier Parents and Tutors

With Verdocs, Foundations experienced tangible benefits:

  1. On average, the turnaround time to execute documents decreased from days to hours, saving foundations hundreds of hours to chase incomplete documents.
  2. The HR team at Foundations all had access to Verdocs, simplifying digital access to all pending and executed documents.
  3. Enabling tutors and parents to digitally execute thousands of logs increased satisfaction with their experience with Foundations.

 

Kate DeValerio says:

“Verdocs has given us the flexibility to deliver experiences that allow us to reach our clients in the ways that work best for them. The team at Verdocs has supported our growth by helping us streamline our operations with digital documents and workflows..”