Development of Systems for Processing and Managing Donations for the William A. Burnard Warming Center

Structure is important for any organization to have success and grow. Thus, having a good inventory system can make a huge difference. This project set out to investigate and develop a system that would be able to monitor incoming donations, inventory levels, and items given away to guests. The inventory method needed to be as automated as possible because the warming center volunteers were already busy with other responsibilities. While many softwares were researched, my proposed solution was created with a combination of Google Sheets and Google Forms, as it is free and can be customized to the specific needs of the warming center. Given the title “William A. Burnard Warming Center Mastersheet,” this inventory system would track donations and donor information, total inventory, current inventory, certain items given to guests, and weekly counts of the most commonly used items. A purely automated system was not possible given the circumstances, but this system can be considered a hybrid, with some items counted automatically while others need a manual count. The hope is that the manual counting was made simple enough not to place any additional burden on the volunteers. Although this system is far from perfect, it will hopefully help the warming center find a future inventory system that will give them the organization and structure to further allow them to prosper as a new nonprofit organization.