Fulfillment Best Practices

Your member has met their goal (woohoo!), now it's time to redeem the points and fulfill the members needs using the funds raised. We realize the task of fulfillment can often be one of the more difficult steps in the process so we have some suggestions to help make this process easier for you and your staff.  

Setting Appropriate Policies

It's important to get together with your staff to decide on which ways your organization wants to handle fulfillment. It will be a lot less cumbersome if you have a process set up in advance.

Ultimately, we trust our partners to make the best decisions and know your own capacity as an organization. The only thing that we ask is you remain in compliance with HandUp policies as well. We are pretty flexible, but we just want to make sure no cash is given out and that there is little to no risk of the member being able to get access to alcohol, drugs or any harmful substances or items with the route of fulfillment you choose. 

An example of how you will begin to think about creating policy: 

Scenario: A client's goal is to raise money for new clothes.

Fulfillment: HOW will we fulfill this need? 

• Will you plan a trip to go to a store to go shopping with the client?
• Will you have the member find the items they want online in advance and set an appointment to purchase them online together?
• Will you purchase a gift card or voucher for a store that sells clothing (ie. Goodwill, Salvation Army, TJ Maxx etc.) and allow your client to go purchase the clothes themselves? 

Find a policy that works best for both the client and your staff, then decide which way is going to be best practice for your organization. Each client is different, and it's okay to vary from the agreed-upon method but it's good to have acceptable methods in place to choose from. 

Accounting Considerations
We know that every organization has different processes for accounting and different systems for making purchase requests internally. With that said, we have found the most success when organizations are able to provide a debit or credit card as well as checks that case managers and staff can access to make purchases for members. Additionally, setting up a separate bank account for HandUp funds or designating a specific category in your accounting software can be helpful for managing funds.

At the end of each month, you will have access to a report detailing all donations and deductions made on your account. We count on the administrative staff to cross check the transactions that have been entered on HandUp with your own bank statements and reporting to make sure HandUp funds have been spent according to their intended purpose.

Setting Expectations with Members
Whatever fulfillment methods you decide to go with, it is important to set expectations up front with members. For example, if you know that your check request process typically takes 2-3 business days, it is important to let members know of this lead time in advance so they can plan accordingly.

It helps to discuss fulfillment methods in advance with the client as well. For example, if you the goal is to purchase certain tools needed for work, try to have the member research the desired tools in advance so when the time comes to purchase the items, you can reduce time spent searching around online. We know that appointment time can be limited so it's good to think of ways to maximize the time spent. 

Additionally, when creating new members profiles on HandUp, it is good to set a Primary Contact. This will trigger notifications to the appropriate staff member when the client has reached their goal. This will help you better organize and prepare. Perhaps if a member reaches their goal you will want to give them a call to let them know next steps so they are prepared when it comes to fulfillment. Or if the goal requires a check to be issued, you can start the process on this when that notification comes in. 

To set a Primary Contact, go to edit the member profile and select the Miscellaneous tab and near the bottom, you can select the drop-down next to 'Primary Contact' and choose whoever is appropriate.