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Nonprofit

FormAssembly Provides a Multi-Faceted Web Form Solution for Baltimore Corps

Billy Daly

Director of Data, Technology, and Evaluation

Case Study Snapshot

Baltimore Corps is a Baltimore-based organization seeking to connect talented individuals with local organizations to ultimately work toward causing positive social change in the city. As a thriving nonprofit, their form builder use case involves FormAssembly solutions in a variety of ways, including operating events and application processing for their Fellowship Program.

About

  • Founded in 2013 with the mission of enlisting talent to accelerate social innovation.
  • The flagship Fellowship Program recruits rising professionals from around the city.
  • Fosters a collaborative network among fellows and city leadership.
  • Maintains a diverse Board of Directors and extensive Alumni Network.

The numbers

5

years with FormAssembly

1-2

hours of staff time saved per application

500+

forms created to date

30,000+

responses collected to date

The Need

A Growing Need to Sync with Salesforce

Once they implemented their new Salesforce instance, it became clear that they needed a tool

Baltimore Corps previously used Google Forms to process incoming applications. Once they implemented their new Salesforce instance, it became clear that they needed a tool or solution that could do a more elegant job of connecting information back to the CRM.

Moreover, before FormAssembly offered staff a way to use forms to complete application reviews, employees of Baltimore Corps had to do them in Salesforce. This proved to be a tedious, cumbersome process that lacked objectivity.

The Solution

Better Connections, Simple Features

What’s wonderful about FormAssembly is there’s such a plethora of customizations that you can do with it, and all of it is drag-and-drop.

Baltimore Corps found FormAssembly through their connection to the Salesforce community. They now use it for a wide range of tasks, including collecting and reviewing applications, collecting sign-ups at recruitment events, processing check-ins for different sessions, and gathering RSVPs.

“What’s wonderful about FormAssembly is there’s such a plethora of customizations that you can do with it, and all of it is drag-and-drop,” Daly said.

Use Cases

Program Applications

Applicants can easily submit new information with FormAssembly

Baltimore Corps began using FormAssembly for their Fellowship Program applications, which were originally completed with Google Forms. FormAssembly’s advanced Salesforce integration met the needs of Baltimore Corps and provided a more flexible form experience.

“That was the decisive moment when we said, ‘What’s the best way that we can flexibly build different forms that we need, starting primarily with the application, but also have that data directly live in Salesforce?’” Daly said. “That was the initial use case for it and it has just exploded since then.”

Application Reviews

Web forms promote speedy and trackable applicant reviews

Where FormAssembly helped save the most time and create the greatest impact was the application processing of the Fellowship Program.

Each fellowship application submitted to Baltimore Corps goes through a 6-step review process, where staff members assess the answers and overall skill of the applicant. After the review, they pass the application to a recruiter with their personal recommendation.

The review process now includes streamlined FormAssembly forms integrated with TaskRay, which triggers notifications to different staff members. Employees provide feedback and ratings, which are automatically synced to Salesforce.

“The two huge benefits that came out of that process were efficiency and making the process a little bit more fair and consistent,” Daly said.

In the past, application processing took several read-throughs, which could take weeks. Occasionally, there was disagreement over an applicant, but because responses weren’t recorded, there wasn’t always a way to decide whether a candidate should move on.
Moving to a “structured, form-based review process” cut out the need to review an application an unnecessary amount of times because of the simplified nature of the review questions. It also made it easier to understand the thought process behind a recommendation.

“Because employee responses were recorded in this form, we had a breadcrumb trail for their opinions about and recommendations on a candidate,” Daly said.

Application Portal

A new portal creates a self-guided web form process

An additional project involved an overhaul of application processing from one long form into a user-friendly, self-guided application portal with a series of small forms. The portal displays all required forms and allows users to fill them out in any order. Contact information is prefilled to eliminate duplicate information or work on the part of the applicant.

“It has really increased conversion. It’s a lot easier to go and fill out five questions on a single section and hit submit than have that be one page of five,” Daly said.

The portal set-up has a benefit for staff as well. Because they can see what forms people have filled out and where they are in the process, it’s easier to understand what sections might be tripping people up and to reach applicants in a more targeted way.

application form example
Coordination and Tracking

FormAssembly creates a streamlined way to plan and track events

FormAssembly has been a huge help to Baltimore Corps as they plan annual events, which have included major recognition, award, and fundraising events around the holidays.

FormAssembly is used for individual campaigns throughout the year to gather leads and interest and to collect RSVPs. It can also be used to sign people in at each event to get an accurate attendee list for post-event follow-ups and thank you notes.

“All that starts with being able to formally intake them into our system, check to see they already have a contact, and being able to put them all in one place. This way we can have a full account,” he said.

Previously, handling events required great effort and time.

“All we had was a spreadsheet, and it was sort of cobbled together through a bunch of handwritten forms. It probably took at least 30 hours of continuous work to try to merge all these different spreadsheets and input them in the system,” Daly said.

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What’s Next?

Baltimore Corps takes FormAssembly’s features and connectors and uses them to bring their processes to the next level.

“It allows us us to think continuously about new services that we can offer because we have the tools to do that,” Daly said. “It allows cascading new opportunities for innovation.”

FormAssembly provides the tools they need, and with their creative approach to problem-solving, Baltimore Corps is able to continually achieve great results with a small team, while bringing better experiences to their users.

“I want to take every opportunity to say it: I love FormAssembly so much and we are so appreciative for all that the FormAssembly team has put together because it is such an amazing tool,” Daly said.

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