ShowerUp Streamlines Donor & Volunteer Management
ShowerUp, a nonprofit providing mobile showers and personal care for those experiencing homelessness, faced significant operational challenges as it expanded. Managing a growing donor base and coordinating volunteers across multiple cities proved daunting for Co-Founder and Executive Director Paul Schmitz and Chief Operating Officer Taylor Reed.
The challenge
Schmitz highlighted the initial struggle: “We were farming donation processing, communications, and volunteer management to different apps. Given our small team and limited time for complex systems, I wanted a cohesive system for donation processing and communications that could show us the entire donor relationship—and it had to be easy.”
Reed faced difficulties with managing the volunteer experience. “I used to have a separate Excel spreadsheet even though we were paying for a volunteer platform,” he said. This platform wasn’t able to address ShowerUp’s requirements to manage events and volunteer sign-ups in different cities. “People couldn’t figure out the system,” Reed stated. “I would have to manually add volunteers and coordinate dates because the volunteer platform couldn’t do it.”
The solution 
Bloomerang, a comprehensive donor and volunteer management solution, marked a turning point for ShowerUp. Now, the organization can easily manage donors and track donations. “To check my donations for the year, I don’t have to run a report,” noted Schmitz. “Everything’s right there on the dashboard, and I can even track donations in real time on the app.”
The organization has also streamlined volunteer management. “Our volunteers have full access to their records in Bloomerang, so they can see their assignments and schedule their time on their own,” continued Schmitz. “Everything’s verified in the system, which saves us so much time and is great for our volunteers.”
The results
“We’re spending less with Bloomerang and getting more,” Schmitz shared. “Since we started with Bloomerang, we’re seeing more first-time donors because it’s so easy to give through our website.”
On the volunteer side, ShowerUp can promote opportunities on its website and offer a self-service process that makes it easy for volunteers to select the right opportunity in the right city, “The number of calls and emails requesting help is now almost zero, which is saving two hours a week” Reed said. “Since we’ve been using Bloomerang, we’ve seen 60% growth in volunteer signups.”
“Since we’ve been using Bloomerang, we’ve seen 60% growth in volunteer signups.”
What’s next
ShowerUp plans to continue using Bloomerang to manage growth. “Bloomerang is an ideal marriage of volunteer and donor management,” Schmitz explained. “The deeper we get into it, the more we love it. We want to continue to grow and expand our reach, and Bloomerang will be a key part of that.”
“Bloomerang is an ideal marriage of volunteer and donor management. The deeper we get into it, the more we love it.”
In volunteer growth
Time savings from easy, self-service volunteer management
