Zero Waste SG exponentially increases their outreach with bantu Workspace
A case study on ‘Customer Champion’ Zero Waste SG
About Zero Waste SG
Zero Waste SG is a new non-profit and non-governmental organisation dedicated to help Singapore eliminate the concept of waste, and accelerate the shift towards zero waste and the circular economy.
Zero Waste SG aims to promote education and engagement on the 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) among individuals and households; increase waste minimisation and recycling among businesses and organisations; and reduce specific waste.
Challenges
Cool fact: Originally started as a website to provide tips and resources on waste minimisation and recycling, Zero Waste SG has now expanded to become an officially registered non-governmental organisation that plans outreach events to educate Singaporeans on reducing their waste! They organise large scale events that require a lot of volunteers — and over time, Zero Waste SG has been looking for an effective platform to recruit volunteers sustainably, and engage volunteers to retain them more easily.
Jess Ong, Project Executive at Zero Waste SG, helps to manage volunteers, through good onboarding practices and the matching of skill sets of volunteers to specific needs of Zero Waste SG.
The Search for Volunteers
Zero Waste SG’s outreach events require a lot of volunteers to front the outreach of reducing waste in Singapore. Recruiting volunteers took Zero Waste SG a lot of time, from marketing the event, organising volunteer applications, consolidating their information, to reaching out to them individually. For a long time, Zero Waste SG tried using various platforms to recruit volunteers in a simple yet efficient way.
Informal Communication
As volunteers are the forefront of Zero Waste SG’s engagement booths and events, Jess had to make sure that information was communicated clearly to volunteers. For instance to confirm the details of volunteering events and convey important information Communication with Zero Waste SG was mostly done over WhatsApp and messages were sent one-by-one to each volunteer — a very manual and time consuming process.
Lack of Engagement
For Jess as a Volunteer Manager, she wanted to build relationships and appreciating volunteers, more than just recruiting volunteers for events. — which is why Zero Waste SG actively looked for a way to engage their volunteers beyond their events.
Solution
Using bantu Workspace, the Zero Waste SG team saw immediate benefits. bantu Workpsace enabled Zero Waste SG to transform and streamline all their volunteer management processes, rather than spending excessive amounts of time recruiting, managing and engaging volunteers.
Recruitment Has Never Been Simpler
With a plethora of avenues to recruit volunteers, Jess eventually opted to recruit volunteers through bantu’s volunteer recruitment portal. Zero Waste SG’s volunteers now can easily create an account and volunteer on a recurring basis.
Additionally, by adopting an integrated platform, all volunteer information registered on the portal is automatically synchronised to her organiser account on bantu Workspace. This means that Jess no longer has to export information from one platform to upload onto another platform — everything has been integrated and presented all at one glance.
With the vast number of volunteers using bantu’s centralised recruitment portal, this also allows for other volunteers to discover projects from Zero Waste SG!
Quick Communication with Volunteers
Doing away with informal WhatsApp messages which took Jess hours to send, bantu Workspace’s Smart Messaging allows Jess to have a much more systematic manner of communicating with her volunteers, just using a few minutes of her day
Automated SMS sending allows Jess to save message templates to be reused for all events. This has firmed up systems to send reminders in a more formal manner. Additionally, these messages are fully automated and reminders can be scheduled way in advance.
“Previously, we used to send reminders on WhatsApp. Bantu’s platform allows us to engage with our volunteers more professionally.” — Jess Ong, Project Executive at Zero Waste SG
Why stop at reminder messages? Jess has even used our system to send ‘Thank You’ messages to volunteers, encouraging volunteers to come back and volunteer again.
Increased Engagement with Volunteers
“One of the features we use is the Mail Launcher tool. We usually use it either to send reminder emails, confirmation emails when they are able to volunteer. Recently, we’ve also used the platform to send out New Year greetings and Christmas greetings to them!”–Jess Ong, Project Executive at Zero Waste SG
It’s so much simpler to engage with volunteers through bantu Workspace — features such as the Mail Launcher makes sure that volunteers receive well wishes from Zero Waste SG and festive greetings for every holiday — all automated without having to lift a finger.
Each volunteer at Zero Waste SG now receives a personalised ‘Happy Birthday’ email on their birthday, fully customisable to their organisation’s preferred style.
“I think it was great that we could use bantu to send it out because you already have all their emails on the platform.” — Jess Ong, Project Executive at Zero Waste SG
This simple tool has helped Zero Waste SG to show their gratitude and engage with their volunteers in a much simpler and fuss-free manner, fulfilling their goal of making every volunteer truly a part of the Zero Waste SG family
Freeing Up Time For Outreach
Over time, Zero Waste SG has just been expanding to get even bigger and better. A study we did previously shows how over 600 minutes of your time can be cut by using bantu Workspace — and Zero Waste SG is a classic example of doing so.
By saving time on these menial processes, this has helped free up Jess’ time to focus more on expanding outreach. Since Zero Waste SG has come on board with bantu Workspace, Jess no longer has to worry about sending emails and messages individually, allowing her to devote more time to serve the community.
This article was co-written with Abigail Chloe Chew
