Welcome to the second of our series of stories around clients using Fulcrum to perform data collection in the field. For Part 2, we have non-profit organizations that use Fulcrum’s data collection forms in the field for charitable pursuits.
Desert Channels Queensland (DCQ) – DCQ is a community-based nonprofit that does projects to improve water quality, restore ground cover and native vegetation, protect habitats, and rehabilitate erosion. DCQ field teams perform data collection for hundreds of projects in an area of Australia larger than California and South Carolina combined, and have created custom Fulcrum data collection forms for uses as varied as weed location, wild animal monitoring, groundwater recovery, and even managing and maintaining vehicle fleets. DCQ was particularly enthusiastic about Fulcrum’s ability to collect data not only from field teams, but landowners, local authorities, and even tourists, while still being able to count on accurate, geotagged information.
Client quote: “I was asked by a landholder to add fields to an app. I logged into Fulcrum through my iPad, made changes, and within five minutes the app was updated and synced. That is a measure of the true greatness of Fulcrum.”
HALO Trust – The HALO Trust is a non-profit organization with a mission to clear landmines and other explosive remnants of war in countries recovering from conflict. HALO employs over 1,000 Cambodian staff as professional de-miners, to survey and clear minefields, in most cases using metal detectors assisted by ground-penetrating radar. GIS is critical to managing the process, from first identifying an area as hazardous and mapping it, through to demarcating the cleared area and handing it back to the local community. Originally performed using paper forms, field teams now use tablets to collect information, eliminating time-consuming data entry and allowing HALO the time to do more in-depth studies including gauging the effectiveness of a risk education program.
Client quote: The widespread use of smartphones and the ability to create dual-language Khmer-English apps in Fulcrum has made training and implementation straightforward.
House of Hope – House of Hope is a nonprofit that focuses on the homeless population of Rhode Island, with services including outreach, advocacy, and case management for the homeless with the goal of connecting them to community resources. Before Fulcrum, outreach workers would canvas an area and meet with homeless people, but details would become lost, and would also have to be manually input into a database. Now, anyone from team members to interns can quickly document their contacts with homeless persons, including automatic geolocation, allowing for immediate follow-up with needed resources.
Client quote: “What immediately attracted me to it [Fulcrum] was the ease of it and the user friendliness of it. Now we do our data collection on the spot. So after I talk with a client, I step aside for a couple of seconds and I write a quick note in Fulcrum, and when I sync it, everyone else who is doing outreach with me can immediately see that note and I don’t have a chance to forget it.”
Village Earth – A nonprofit providing an array of technical support and training to Native American Tribes, Village Earth serves as the lead housing unit mapping and survey contractor for the Dakota Housing Needs Assessment (DHNA). Using Fulcrum, Village Earth was able to collect data on previously missed households and plot them on reference maps, allowing it to challenge federal census data and receive almost $1.3M more in federal funding due to corrected population information.
Client quote: The most impressive thing about Fulcrum was the support we received from its staff. Whether it was a general question about how to use the app, an issue encountered, or a feature request, the staff were always available and eager to help.
Interested in learning more about Fulcrum for data collection forms and field operations? Read more about Fulcrum for field ops, or give it a try for yourself with our free 30-day trial!