As startups all over Charlotte work to adapt to a new normal during the COVID-19 crisis, SignUpGenius has hit the ground running.
SignUpGenius was founded in Charlotte in 2008 by Dan Rutledge and Michael Vadini. It's an online application designed for group organization, event planning and volunteer scheduling and management.
Kate White, SignUpGenius' director of marketing, said spring and fall are peak seasons for scheduling events. The pandemic, and the subsequent state-wide stay-at-home order, forced most organizations to stop event planning completely.
"A lot of event centers were halted in their tracks," White said. "We've had to work with our customers to change their online signups and communication quickly with their groups."
Across the country, food banks and other community groups have flooded the site over the last couple of weeks as people look to organize efforts in response to the virus, White said.
"We've had mask-making and sewing groups come to us, as well as meal delivery groups and personal (grocery) shoppers," she said. "We’re noticing other new groups coming to our site to organize in a way they didn’t have to before."
White said Families Forward Charlotte, an organization that supports local families living in poverty, uses SignUpGenius frequently but was able to organize volunteers to provide activities and snacks for families enrolled in the program until the state-wide order is lifted.
Telitha Hight, community partnership chair for Families Forward Charlotte, said the organization's president Carrie Christian approached her last week and suggested they create a SignUpGenius list of families interested in receiving games and printed activity sheets sent to their homes.
The list, which was was posted to Facebook on Sunday, included the gender, age and number of children for each of eight families. Hight said by Tuesday morning the SighUpGenius list had 37 shares and more than 4,000 views.
"I think for asking for community help, SignUpGenius makes the process so easy. You create the list and then it provides you a link which you can post anywhere," she said. "These kids and families aren’t used to getting mail and packages, so I think it’s going to be ... something to help combat that boredom, a creative outlet."
Now, Hight said, 14 families will receive donations through the list. She anticipates the number could continue to grow.
"It would’ve been a lot more logistically challenging to do this without SignUpGenius," she said. "I guess it could have been done, but it would’ve been harder to manage and taken a lot more time."
