Estimated read time: 3 minutes
Overview
In Agency Settings, Agency Workers and Agency Reps have the option to submit requests for multiple families rather than just one individual family. This setting is defaulted to Off and may be turned on in partnership with the local Network Leaders after considering what impact these additional types of requests might have on the local network's ability to meet them.
Intended audience
Included in this article
- When (and when not) to use Multi-Family Requests
- What's different about Multi-Family Requests?
- Agency best practices for Multi-Family Requests
When (and when not) to use Multi-Family Requests
A request should be identified as a Multi-Family Request when:
- An Agency Worker would like to invite broad participation in a collections drive for a specific list of items that can be used by their Agency to serve multiple families over time or across a large region — such as coats, blankets, beds and bedding, school supplies, shoes, etc.
- The logistics for getting the items to the families identified will be handled in a streamlined or centralized way
A request should not be identified as a Multi-Family Request when:
- An Agency Worker has identified that two or three specific families on their caseload have a similar type of need for a specific item, such as a bed or crib. In these cases, items should be entered as separate requests for each family to give the local community a chance to respond and help.
- The primary motivation is simply to avoid the volume of notification emails that individual family requests would generate. Using Multi-Family Requests this way can create a disruptive experience for responders and may jeopardize the long-term sustainability of the network.
What's different about Multi-Family Requests?
When the Multi-Family Request setting is enabled, a simple checkbox will appear at the start of the request-entry process, asking whether the request serves multiple families.
When checked, the remaining steps of entering the request will include a Special Instructions field below the Story field, as shown below.
The information in the Special Instructions field will appear at the bottom of the public request description when the request is approved and goes live. This gives Agency Workers a chance to explain the general collection plan for the items requested — visible to all potential responders — reducing the need to share logistics individually with each person who commits to Provide one or more of the needed items.
Example: All items should be dropped off in the front lobby of 123 Main Street by Thursday, May 2nd at 5pm.
Additional follow-up, sharing more sensitive details, and answering specific questions may still be necessary with individual responders — for example, giving a specific address, link, or entry code. Any detail that should not be publicly available should not be included in the Special Instructions field.
Agency best practices for Multi-Family Requests
Aim high when entering the quantity or amount needed
Once the quantity or amount you originally entered has been fully committed, CarePortal will not allow additional responses. If you aim high, you can always close the request as Partially Met by Church/CarePortal Network, which gives you the opportunity to update the actual quantity or amount that was provided.
Think about logistics ahead of time
If you're hosting a collections drive, have a smooth collection process planned out and confirmed before submitting the request.
Get outside feedback about the clarity of your Special Instructions
Special Instructions are only helpful if they're clear and easy to understand. Have someone read your first draft to make sure it makes sense from an outside perspective.
Comments
3 comments
This is such a great feature to include!
Will a caseworker be notified of every response (assuming churches turn off respond to team leader setting?) If so, if the request is for a drive and 100+ items are requested, and 100+ people respond, that would be an overwhelming amount of emails!
Claire, yes, the caseworker would be notified of each response. In adding the Special Instructions field to multi-family requests, the hope is that a caseworker could include any additional information there so that when they get responses to the request, it doesn't necessarily prompt them to need to take action, it would then be more of a notification that someone has responded just so they are aware.
So far, we haven't heard any feedback from caseworkers about overwhelming emails in regards to responses on multi-family requests. If you're aware of that being an issue, though, please let us know and we can look into this more!
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