Feeding the Hungry Faster and Easier

Organization Information:

Organization Name:
The Aidmatrix Foundation
City & State:
Irving, 
Texas
Organization Website:
http://www.aidmatrix.org
Organization's Mission Statement

The Aidmatrix Foundation Inc. is a Dallas-based 501(c) (3) nonprofit with a mission to bring technology used in for-profit companies to the world of humanitarian relief. Aidmatrix gets the Right Aid to the Right People at the Right Time™. By combining supply chain management and internet technology, Aidmatrix provides solutions to make nonprofits more efficient at minimal cost. 35,000 leading corporate, nonprofit and government partners leverage Aidmatrix solutions to mobilize $1.5 billion in aid annually and impact the lives of more than 65 million people worldwide.

Submission Information

Impact Essay

Program History

Feeding America (the nations’ food bank network) has been partnering with Aidmatrix for seven years and uses four systems to manage daily activities: · Donor Express - processes hundreds of national donation offers daily· AgencyExpress™ – allows agencies to order directly from the food banks · Choice System – allows food banks to share donations among themselves with a point system · Virtual Food Drive™ – online fundraising program

Program Award Submission

Aidmatrix is feeding hungry people faster and cheaper than ever through the AgencyExpress™ solution, by improving efficiency for Food Banks nationwide. It allows for agencies and pantries to order from a Food Bank’s warehouse inventory online. Countless hours are being saved as this was a paper based system in the past. Food banks can now shift their focus to income generating positions instead of emailing or faxing out order lists and manually inputting orders. In the past, nonprofit organizations were ordering products that may have run out before their order was processed, and Food banks were constantly having to manage their disappointment. AgencyExpress™ revolutionizes this process by streamlining Agency ordering with real-time data for food banks nationwide. Aidmatrix has been able to make this program possible because of several Microsoft solutions. Agency Express is designed off of the Microsoft.Net 2.0 platform. The key Microsoft components in building this solution include ASP.Net, VB.Net, Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, Microsoft Ajax extensions, IIS 6.0, and Windows 2003 operating systems. Finally, this tool integrates with CERES, a product built on top of Microsoft Dynamics (formerly known as Navision) which is used at the Food Banks. Today Agency Express integrates with almost 30 instances of CERES. The online ordering system pulls and pushes data to and from the CERES inventory system to maintain accurate, real time, and enhanced communication and ordering between agencies and Food Banks. This product is unique because it is designed on web 2.0 standards, Each Food Bank’s instance of this program has completely customized content. Agency Express is a multi tenant application meaning that all food banks are on the same solution but each have a different look and feel. Food Banks are able to configure the content areas by uploading their banners and their website into the tool. This maintains their own custom look and feel and only has a tab across the top that allows for the pantries to interact with the AgencyExpress™ solution. The website in the content area is a completely functional website. This tool is taking communication between the providers of food for the hungry to a new level saving both time and money and ultimately allowing more food to be purchased and delivered to needy Americans.

What is it?

AgencyExpress™ was created in 2002 to help Food Banks find a more efficient way to process their agency orders. Instead of spending long hours with faxes and emails, Food Banks needed a powerful solution to streamline this process driving America’s Second Harvest (now Feeding America) and Aidmatrix to begin the collaboration to build AgencyExpress™. AgencyExpress™ is a secure, online shopping site that allows Food Banks to make their inventory visible to their agencies and easily place orders.

Who does it help?

Almost 30 food banks use this online shopping system. In turn, around 16,000 of their agencies nationwide are placing 1,000 orders each day, totaling over 494 million pounds of food moving through AgencyExpress™ since its inception. How does it work?Agencies log on to the AgencyExpress™ website, browse qualified inventory for their program, and submit their orders. The agencies’ orders are then sent to the food banks inventory system and once approved, orders are sent back to notify agencies.

Benefits

From the Food Bank perspective, this solution provides increased efficiency which reduces manual processes and expenditures for order management. For example, the Oklahoma food bank decreased the labor associated with processing orders by a conservative 80%. They were able to focus their team on higher value areas. The tool also enables a decrease in environmental waste of unused products because with increased inventory visibility, more flow-through in the warehouse, and a higher order fill rate, there is less waste. From the agency perspective, their fulfillment rates have improved. They know exactly what they are going to get when they pick up products at the food bank. This has allowed nonprofit agencies to reduce their retail purchases by over 20%. This is especially the case with nonprofit organizations that serve children as they must produce a meal plan for government review. By having a window into the inventory, these organizations know their menu’s and spend less at retail organizations. In addition, by having real time access of the entire inventory, nonprofit agencies can increase the variety. The most valuable benefit is the social impact. More hungry Americans are getting fed and Microsoft is a key part of this solution. AgencyExpress™ enhances communication. It provides the food bank real-time, accurate reporting abilities. Agencies have access to more detailed information such as the total order weight, order history, and online status information concerning orders or agency accounts. With the total order weight, agencies can schedule the right vehicle to pick up the load. Agency Express also allows the nonprofits to schedule their pickup times in an automated fashion which in turn increases the efficiency of deliveries for both the food bank and their agencies. AgencyExpress™ is used by almost 30 food banks in some of the most critical urban areas in the United States. Aidmatrix appreciates the opportunity to be recognized for creating an elegant online solution; even more so, we appreciate the chance to use our skills to make a huge impact on the well-being of people’s lives. Thanks for letting Aidmatrix “Show our Impact.”

Submission Category
Transformations to Maximize Impact