Good Food For All People

Mission Statement: GRuB has been dedicated to building a just, sustainable food system by creating nurturing and engaging leadership opportunities for youth and adults. We inspire positive personal and community change by bringing people together around food and agriculture.

Question 1: The Before: What was the challenge, issue or problem your organization was facing? Or, what was the opportunity you were not able to take advantage of before you put a technology solution in place?; Answer: GRuB has been working on issues of hunger and poverty since 1993 and in the first half of our existence, we did it on a shoestring budget. For us this meant a lot of "making do" with what we had, particular when it came to technology. We utilized outdated, donated computers with older software that met our needs for a while, but as the need in our community began to grow, we realized we needed to step up all of our systems in order to meet those needs.

Question 2: What Microsoft software have you used/are you using in your organization to more effectively engage your beneficiaries, donors and/or volunteers and/or to make a difference in your community?; Answer: Microsoft Office 2007 or 2010 (Includes any of the following: Access, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, OneNote, Outlook, and Word); Other: Windows XP, Microsoft Server software

Question 3: The After: How have these Microsoft products allowed you to engage your stakeholders more efficiently or effectively to make a difference in your community?; Answer: In 2008, we earned a grant from Best Buy that allowed us to upgrade some of our technology to better meet the needs of our organization and community. We were able to establish our own on-site server using Microsoft products and moved all of our computers (some new and some old) to the same versions of Windows XP and Microsoft Office 2007, which has allowed us to more easily collaborate on documents and projects together and more efficiently do our work.

Question 4: What about these products (the features or the way you used them) made them particularly helpful in enabling your organization to expand and improve upon its community impact?; Answer: Despite our work being primarily about building free gardens for low-income people and empowering youth to break cycles of poverty through leadership development activities on our small farm, we do a surprising amount of computer work to make it all happen. We use Microsoft Word as our key word processor for grants, planning & evaluation documents, and donor relations. Microsoft Excel has been invaluable in our annual budgeting process as well as a tool for planning for timelines and project management. All of this has allowed us to better plan and do our work and therefore make a greater impact on the community we serve.

Question 5: Please provide any examples, stories or data that illustrate the difference the use of Microsoft software has enabled you to make (i.e., # of new clients reached, new program added, increased dollars raised, increased volunteers, etc.; Answer: Without Microsoft office products, we would not be able to effectively fundraise for our programs. In 2010, we wrote and received over $200,000 in grant funding using Word. We also utilized Word for our annual direct mail fundraising letter, which has brought in over $50,000 in community donations for our programs.

Upload photos or other supporting works/files: 2010 Fall Mail Appeal - Seriously Final Version.pdf

Peg & Rick Young Foundation 2011 - GRuB School.docx

Lassen 2010 Report.docx

2011 outreach flyer with tabs.pub

Microsoft Technology For Good Contest