Supporting survivors of disasters during one of their greatest times of need, Austin Disaster Relief Network(ADRN) is a network of churches that partners with thousands of trained volunteers, businesses, other non-profits, and government agencies to provide relief when disaster strikes in and around Austin, TX. Primarily a volunteer-run organization, ADRN’s mission is to equip, empower, and mobilize these networks to respond to the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of those affected by disaster.

When it comes to managing operations around disaster relief, “no two days are ever the same,” says the organization’s Operations Manager, Michael Gardner. From providing toothbrushes, clothes, food, and other basic necessities for disaster survivors to offering emotional and spiritual support, ADRN’s volunteers offer a broad range of services to those impacted.

Customized host notifications when visitors arrive

One of ADRN’s strengths is mobilizing and deploying volunteers in a highly-organized and well-coordinated manner. Envoy helps them do this with a dependable yet simple-to-use visitor management system that addresses the day-to-day unpredictability at ADRN.

ADRN now uses Envoy to speed up signing in volunteers, guests, and survivors at their headquarters, for tracking volunteer’s hours both day-to-day and in deployment, and for automatic visitor badge printing. Getting people to sign in and out during the chaos of an emergency is a top priority for ADRN. Envoy has proved especially useful for staff whose job is to meet with disaster survivors. Envoy also allows the ADRN team to pick the notification preferences they wish when a survivor is there to see them.

At headquarters, ADRN now has a real-time list of everyone in their 25,000 square foot building. An always up-to-date, digital log of visitors provides actionable insights that help ADRN maintain a dynamic emergency plan. This is especially helpful during a disaster as real time statistics from Envoy’s API are refreshed every hour to pull data such as the current and projected total volunteer hours for each day.

“Actionable information like this allows us, for example, to know how much water we need each day to take care of everyone in the Texas heat” notes Gardner.

Digital volunteer sign-in enables more efficient disaster response

Before Envoy, signing in volunteers was a manual process. Volunteers would sign in on a paper notepad, and make note of any important details about the day. This information then had to be entered by hand into an Excel spreadsheet. Paper sheets often went missing, and it would take hours to process all of the sign-in sheets from the week.

Now, Envoy allows for ADRN to access an updated spreadsheet every hour to get the most up-to-date information in order to keep operations flowing smoothly.

User-friendly digital experience reduces overhead

Because the sign-in experience is simple and straightforward, there’s no need for ADRN to have staff full-time at their front desk. In addition to signing in, Envoy helps keep ADRN in compliance by prompting visitors to digitally sign injury liability forms.

Since the organization doesn’t have a dedicated person to greet visitors when they walk in, they use Envoy with a badge printer to get people signed in and on their way efficiently.

“It’s extremely clear to visitors what they need to do once they arrive in our facility,” states Gardner. “The self-service option that Envoy helps volunteers and survivors alike know exactly what to do when they arrive at our headquarters.”