Bigger Boat partners with affordable housing organizations to build custom Salesforce-based solutions which help improve organizational efficiency and effectiveness. Our consulting team has deep project expertise with a range of affordable housing organizations, including supportive housing, inclusionary housing and shared equity models.
Our project expertise includes: case management, client intake, program enrollment, program management, client financial accounts, and property management.
Affordable housing projects include:
Bigger Boat developed a multi-year plan to replace Tenderloin Housing Clinic’s legacy client database. Tenderloin Housing Clinic is the largest provider of supportive housing to formerly homeless adults in San Francisco. Their 250+ employees provide a variety of services including property management, case management, transitional housing, rent payment, representative payee, legal services, and community organizing with a common goal to get and keep people housed.
The new system built by Bigger Boat streamlines their client enrollment process, promotes communication and collaboration, reduces paper and time between enrollment stages, and delivers easy and timely access to program and client data. Read more details in our supportive housing case study.
Bigger Boat worked with BRIDGE Housing to build a system that tracks funder compliance and program offerings in more than 90 communities. BRIDGE’s funding often comes with complicated stipulations around the type of programming they must provide to residents. The BRIDGE team now has a view of their compliance status at all times and can provide compliance reports with just one click.
BRIDGE also provides programs and services to their residents: more than 16,000 hours of classes a year that build capacity and community among residents. We helped BRIDGE replace an inefficient paper-based class attendance system with a tablet-based online attendance process.
Read more details in our two-part funder compliance case study or watch the Salesforce.org webinar on our work with BRIDGE.
Bigger Boat worked with Capital Impact Partners (now Grounded Solutions Network) to implement a system that helps staff ensure compliance of rental housing developments with regulatory agreements.
The system enables compliance monitoring of properties, rental units within those properties and the tenants in those units. It helps them manage information about tenant income to ensure eligible tenants and the required number of occupied units. It also allows them to track physical inspections of the property’s condition and to file inspections to cross-check property owners/managers assessments of tenants’ income qualifications.
Bellwether Housing manages and develops affordable housing in the Seattle area. They serve over 3000 clients a year and manage 30 properties. Bigger Boat worked with them to implement a Salesforce system that helps them manage impact funds and investors.
Read more in our case study on tracking impact investors.
HomeKeeper is a data management system that lets affordable homeownership organizations track their complex day to day program management workflow in Salesforce. It is currently in use by over 70 different homeownership organizations across the country.
The system improves coordination between homeowners and program staff. It also allows organizations to more consistently manage compliance monitoring and homebuyer support activities. Bigger Boat worked with the Capital Impact Partners (now Grounded Solutions Network) to create this product based upon early work with three affordable housing organizations. Learn more about HomeKeeper on the AppExchange or on the HomeKeeper website.
Interested in learning more about our work with affordable housing organizations? Please contact us or see the additional resources below.
Housing – Case Studies
Housing – Best Practices
We initially picked our implementation partner based on their skill set, communication skills, and size (we wanted a smaller company). When I looked at partners I was looking at their hard skills. I didn’t realize how important the PROCESS of implementation would be. Our consultants are great at both focusing on the task at hand, and also at stepping back and look at the bigger picture.
– Kristin Dorage, Tenderloin Housing Clinic
They really work to understand clients’ needs and define the work needed to meet those needs. The amount of agility and collaboration at Bigger Boat brings obvious benefits to clients. Your lead is part of a team that talks, so even if someone isn’t not working on the same project, as a client, we have access to a whole team of knowledgeable people.
– Elizabeth Haney, Grounded Solutions Network
Their keen understanding of nonprofit organizations and their depth of knowledge has been key in our project’s success.
– Rick Jacobus, Capital Impact Partners
Salesforce has been a game changer for our work. Usually when we get notice of an audit, we have just 2-3 weeks to prepare. I needed that amount of time to pause all other work and focus on wrangling years of data to produce a report- a report that determines future funding streams worth millions of dollars. Last month I put Salesforce to the test. I pulled the data needed for an audit in under 2 minutes!
– Alicia Crawford, Director of Programs, BRIDGE Housing
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