Route Planning Supports Efforts to End Global Poverty

Non-profits work to change our world for the better. Essential Need, which is based in Sydney, Australia, wants to do just that by ensuring every child in the world has access to clean water, food and shelter.
It’s a big mission. Essential Need’s Mission 2020 takes on the challenge of ending child death due to water poverty as early as 2020 by spreading social awareness, building a strong water aid and world sustainability network, and supporting children.
To achieve this goal, the non-profit works to track the impact of the donations raised and publicly show the impact of the donations that is projected to make.
“We have Smart Donation Boxes in more than 1,000 businesses, and our relationship managers need to be efficient with visiting them,” explained Omid Faraji, IT consultant for Essential Need’s Projects. “MyRouteOnline seemed like it could provide a simple solution.”
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The Smart Donation Boxes incorporate Internet of Things (IoT) technology that notifies Essential Need when the funds need to be collected. The IoT refers to systems that gather information directly from multiple devices, which can be almost anything with a sensor—including computers, vehicles, smartphones, appliances, building automation systems, and production equipment.
Four relationship managers visit the partners, update partners with recent news about our mission, collect donations, maintain the boxes appearance, deposit the donations, and report how much donations were collected per partner.
In December 2018, Essential Need started using MyRouteOnline to create more than 10 routes a week, with around 20 stops per route. Those stops change all the time, based on which Smart Donation Boxes need the funds collected.
Essential Need’s staff members add the addresses into MyRouteOnline from Excel. The routes are printed and then given to the organization’s relationship managers. They use a GPS or Google Maps on their phones to navigate to the businesses.
The result has been significant savings in time, money and mileage, as well as happier employees, Omid explained.
“I would say we are more than 20% efficient, which would be more than 20% cost efficient too,” he said.
In addition to the financial and time benefits, Omid also appreciates the customer service provided by MyRouteOnline: “The dynamic of their team is friendly and nice to work with.”