Scripture Union Northern Ireland + Jotform Enterprise: By the numbers
# of volunteer leaders managed
2,000
# of children and young people served per year
7,000
# of camps and activities operated
50
Each year, Scripture Union Northern Ireland (SUNI) takes responsibility for the care of 7,000 children and young people, ages 3–18, across hundreds of locations.
As a faith education nonprofit, SUNI helps children and young people read and understand the Bible and its teachings. The organization operates volunteer-run summer camps, local activities, and in-school programming throughout Northern Ireland.
For Kathy Croskery, SUNI’s operations manager, that means finding ways to make sure all of those programs run smoothly — and above all, safely.
Croskery is SUNI’s first operations manager. The role was recently created to streamline the way the organization functions. In many cases, she sets up systems from scratch, looking for opportunities to make improvements wherever she can.
“I’m trying to think of how to streamline things and make things move quicker and be more accessible to people,” she says.
| How Scripture Union Northern Ireland uses Jotform products | |
|---|---|
| Product | Use cases |
| Forms | Camp and activity registrations, parental consent collection, school volunteer applications, and internal administrative forms |
| Tables | Maintain rosters of program registrants, track volunteer leader applications, and manage the school volunteer vetting process |
| Apps | Provide mobile access to forms and resources to volunteer camp leaders and SUNI staff |
| Workflows | Approve invoice payments (with second authorizations), approve expense reimbursements, and track volunteer applications (including reference requests, approvals). Automate multiple internal workflows to share information. |
Consolidating 7,000 annual registrations into one system
To speed up processes and make them more transparent, SUNI first needed to digitize its paper-based workflows. In the past, the organization relied on paper forms for everything from enrolling campers to vetting volunteer leaders.
“We need a consent form completed for every child and young person who crosses the door,” says Croskery. “We need dietary requirements and medical information if we’re taking parental responsibility for them.”
I don’t think we realized just how much [Jotform Enterprise] could help us with until we had it.
Kathy Croskery, Operations Manager, Scripture Union Northern Ireland
Using paper forms to collect all that information was inefficient, to say the least, and made it hard to track participant information centrally. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, SUNI had to fast-track its move to digital data collection.
Staff needed to report COVID-19 cases to the local public health agency, but collecting that information through paper forms would have been slow and impractical. They chose Jotform, which makes it easy to collect, collate, and share the data.
“Digitalization was the pressing need during COVID,” says Croskery. “Then being able to hold the data centrally was also a massive win for us. I don’t think we realized just how much [Jotform Enterprise] could help us with until we had it.”
With a central repository for all participant data, all staff can now access the same information, which is updated in real time as form submissions are received. No more chasing down crucial information like a child’s food allergies in paper files.
With Jotform Enterprise’s Teams feature, staff in different departments — such as camps, schools, and operations — have their own workspaces. Each workspace has its own forms, tables, and other assets for easy access. Information that used to be fragmented across email threads or paper forms is now instantly accessible.
And with its Jotform Enterprise account, SUNI’s data is stored on a server within the EU, helping the organization comply with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) standards.
Staff can also control access, set permissions for different roles, and track actions in the server, adding more security and accountability.
Managing and supporting 2,000+ volunteers — most under 25
SUNI staff manage around 2,000 volunteers each year — most between the ages of 17 and 25 — who deliver the programs in camps, schools, and local events.
These volunteer leaders are spread across hundreds of locations throughout the country, so they need access to resources on the go. And since most volunteers are under 25, Croskery says, communication channels like email just aren’t practical.
“Some of them are barely on text,” she says.
To meet volunteers where they are, the team used Jotform Apps to build a custom mobile app specifically for volunteer leaders. The app gives volunteers quick access to information such as
- Contact details for staff
- Policies and safeguarding resources
- Frequently used forms, like consent forms and supply order forms
- Up-to-date rosters of participants signed up for their activities (in Jotform Tables)
With the app, staff can also send push notifications, ensuring the information volunteers need is always at their fingertips.
Instead of sending out emails and hoping volunteers read them, Croskery says, app notifications reach a device “that’s always in their hand. They’re more likely to get it than to read through a whole email.”
All the approvals and stuff in the background, that would have been days’ worth of emailing people back and forth, whereas now it just gets a wee ping into their inbox.
Kathy Croskery, Operations Manager, Scripture Union Northern Ireland
Croskery says staff are excited to use the new WhatsApp notification feature for Jotform Apps. The feature could be especially helpful in critical situations — for example, if someone needs to report suspected abuse or other health and safety incidents. Staff can receive immediate notifications of form submissions through WhatsApp rather than an email, speeding up response times.
“Rather than just refreshing our emails to see when a form gets submitted, we will get that instantly,” says Croskery. “So there’ll be no delay in us getting the information we need to pass on to social services.”
Streamlining operations behind the scenes
Beyond managing participant and volunteer information, Croskery is also on the lookout for ways to improve other back-end processes the organization relies on.
For example, she set up automated workflows to approve staff expense reimbursement. Using Jotform’s conditional logic feature in reimbursement forms, she can route approvals to the appropriate budget holder.
“All the approvals and stuff in the background, that would have been days’ worth of emailing people back and forth,” she says, “whereas now it just gets a wee ping into their inbox.”
Croskery also built a mobile app for staff that includes links to forms for submitting monthly expenses, requesting annual leave, booking equipment, and requesting payment of invoices. It also houses quick links to shared folders, assets on SharePoint, and staff contact details. There’s even a rota for bringing snacks.
The time Jotform Enterprise saves allows SUNI to keep improving and expanding its offerings. Croskery says she’s always glad to be able to tell SUNI’s board members that their investment in Jotform is worth the money. Jotform, she tells them, enables her and other staff to do their jobs more efficiently, so they can do more with less, which allows the organization to continue growing.
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