Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank Improves Operations

Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank Increases Bandwidth and Visibility with Customised Nonprofit Accounting

The Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank has been serving the hungry in 11 parishes across the state of Louisiana for more than 30 years, offering both food and educational outreach to the community. Of roughly 200 food banks across the nation, it’s just one of a handful of food banks that doesn’t charge its 115 member agencies for the food it gives out. The organisation relies mainly on community donations and grants for funding.

COMPANY

Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank

LOCATION

Baton Rouge, La.

INDUSTRY

Nonprofit, Food & Beverage, Wholesale/Distribution

EMPLOYEES

35-40

REVENUE

$4 million cash budget

SYSTEM REPLACED

Microsoft Dynamics Navision

NETSUITE PRODUCTSa IMPLEMENTED

NetSuite OneWorld
Learning Cloud Support

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“We have a responsibility to our donors to spend their money as wisely as possible. With NetSuite, we can look at different revenue streams and make sure we properly budget. We can look for places to be more efficient.” Jenna Schexnayder, CFO, Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank

A Natural Disaster Intensifies Inefficiencies

Outdated systems require manual manipulation: When Jenna Schexnayder joined as the CFO in June of 2015, she found the team using an outdated ERP platform provided by the parent organisation, Feeding America. She made a small upgrade but it wasn’t enough to meet the nonprofit’s needs. Donors were asking for more information every day, and Schexnayder was spending the bulk of her time manipulating data in spreadsheets to find answers.

Extreme storm damage increases the strain: In August of 2016, a devastating storm stalled over Baton Rouge for several weeks. Inundated with 4-5 feet of floodwater, the food bank lost 500,000 pounds of food as well as all furniture, equipment and trucks. Sheet rock had to be entirely removed, leaving only the building frame costing the organisation millions of dollars in cleaning, sanitising and rebuilding.

A chance encounter leads to nonprofit customisation: Schexnayder had recently seen a video about NetSuite and was immediately taken with the user-friendly interface, the modules dedicated to nonprofit accounting and dashboard reporting. The food bank implemented NetSuite, including Learning Cloud Support, to make sure staff would learn and use it as much as possible.

Accounting launch removes prior hurdles: With NetSuite, closing the books, invoice approvals and allocation reporting are all a lot faster. Schexnayder can also easily see how much the organisation has spent towards a specific grant or program using allocation tracking.

NetSuite supports nonprofits of all sizes in growing their mission through our Social Impact program.

Visit www.netsuite.com/socialimpact to learn more about our product donation, pro bono services and capacity building offerings.

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