Home Start: Volunteer Management
Reimagining volunteer management by replacing manual workflows with a centralized management system.
The Problem
Manasi, Home Start's manager, worked 20 hours per week, but that number spiked to 30–50 hours before major events.
The Solution
How might we help Home Start centralize volunteer data and deliver personalized, privacy-safe communication at scale?
The system allows the coordinator to write one message and send it to a selected group, delivering it as individual texts to each volunteer so phone numbers remain private while maintaining a personal feel.
A search and tag-based filtering allows for segmenting volunteers by event, role, or program.
Templates include dynamic fields that automatically customize each message for every recipient.
Research & Process
Key Insights
Our discovery process incorporated client-led workflow walkthroughs, cross-channel artifact audits, biweekly client check-ins, and constraint mapping across privacy, operational, and technical realities. Our findings included:
Privacy constraints hindered bulk messaging.
This project reinforced that strong product design starts with understanding how people actually work. By embedding in Manasi's daily workflow, we uncovered the real bottlenecks and redesigned the system around them, reducing manual effort by ~75% while preserving personal outreach. We used constraints to shape our solution rather than limit it!
Upon completing the design phase, all visual and interaction components of our product MVP were finalized and handed off to the development team. The current roadmap targets full deployment of the mobile-friendly dashboard by Q2 2026, with advanced features such as analytics, templates, and scheduled messaging to follow in subsequent V2 releases.
