Move intake in three stages. First, decide what you'll collect and where it will live. Then build one short application people can fill out on a phone. Finally, invite your current participants to confirm their own details instead of retyping them.
Keep the old spreadsheet read-only for 60 days, then archive it. Advocate is built for this move: one application, one record for each household, and invitations that bring people over with their consent.
What should you decide before you move intake?
Before you move intake, find every place people's information lives today and pick one place it will live from now on. Choose a switch date when you stop adding to the old places. Advocate becomes that one place, so forms, sheets, inboxes, and paper sign-in sheets all stop.
- List every form, sheet, inbox, text thread, and paper file with people's information
- Pick one source of truth and a switch date
- Keep only the questions you use to decide eligibility and how to help
- Decide who on staff, volunteers, and partners needs to see what
- Write a consent statement in plain language
How should you build the new application?
Build the new application with only the questions you use, then test it on a phone, one-handed. Start short: it's easy to add a question later and much harder to take one away. In Advocate, the application includes a consent step and writes straight into a household record.
Write down your review steps, and the messages people get when an application is received and approved, so volunteers can follow them.
How do you bring current participants over?
Invite current participants instead of retyping them. An invitation lets each person confirm their own details and give consent, and saves you hours of data entry and typos. Advocate sends invitations by email or text, and people who accept land in the same list as new applicants, with no duplicates.
When can you retire the old spreadsheet?
Make the old spreadsheet read-only on your switch date and keep it for 60 days in case you need to look something up. Then archive it, and delete old exports and copies of personal information. Once intake runs in Advocate, households and individuals served are counted without the spreadsheet.
About Advocate
Advocate is nonprofit program software built by Reciprocity in Pontiac, Michigan, for nonprofits across the United States. Program managers use it to take applications, keep one record for each household, send email and texts, run volunteers and events, and run programs such as sponsorship, food pantries, and fundraisers. It counts the households and individuals each program serves while the work happens, and it is free to start.
