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About Us
Our Story
We do things a bit differently, and the results are remarkable!
Our Founder
Started by Jasmine Taylor in August 2019, the Kindly software was born of pure necessity. The Asst. Executive Director of an agency with nearly 500 Early Head Start slots, at the time, Jasmine was all too familiar with the challenges of generating and monitoring in-kind. After some intensive studies to better understand non-federal share, it clicked! The first hurdle was doing away with manual processing. The second was to expand people's knowledge of what "counts" as in-kind. Finally, this new system had to connect teachers, parents and administrators around a common goal - improving outcomes for babies. Kindly does just that - all while providing head start agencies a robust system for monitoring and reporting their in-kind hours in compliance with federal reporting requirements.
Once the pieces were in place, the results were instantaneous! Her agency was able to generate more in-kind in two months than it had in an entire year, since their program began 10 years ago.
Meet the Leadership Team
We believe in Integrity, Service, Kindness, Excellence, Community and Innovation. These core values guide our work both internally with our staff and externally with our clients.
Charletta Johnson
Chief Education Officer
Kamau Taylor
Chief Business Development Officer
Aquila Hudson
Chief Experience Officer
"I realized we needed to make it easy for volunteers to give and staff to track. But we also needed to get them excited about the impact they could all make for our little ones. We are changing lives!"
-Jasmine Taylor
Case Study: Sunrise Children's Foundation
Let's start with the good news.
Sunrise Children’s Foundation quadrupled their in-kind in their first year, using the Kindly system!
The not-so-good news: prior to using Kindly, Sunrise Children’s Foundation, like many EHS and HS providers had a difficult time generating non-federal share. Year after year, they employed new strategies but always had to submit a waiver. In summer 2019, that all changed.
They employed the 3 E’s, of Kindly's proprietary formula for success, and exceeded the in-kind they usually generated in one year during their first two months.
Educate + Ease + Explain = Engaged staff and volunteers!
They went from generating $236,000 annually to $285,000 in in-kind in their first 2 months of using the system. They simply began implementing the Kindly system in August 2019 and it looked like this:
Our Formula
EDUCATE + EASE + EXPLAIN = ENGAGEMENT
EDUCATE
Educate staff and families on what in-kind really is, why it’s important and why we need their help to reach the goal.
Sunrise decided to begin with staff and teachers at their annual Pre-service training.(We suggest you do too!) The Kindly team trained 200 teachers and staff on In-Kind (a training now available to our clients in their In-Kind Engagement Tool Kit). It explained what in-kind is, why we collect it and how we collect it using this new paperless system. Sounds simple but knowledge is power. And let's face it, trying to understand non-federal share can bean intimidating concept for our staff.
EASE
Make it easy for volunteers to submit in-kind and for staff to track progress.
Sunrise rolled out access to the Kindly online tracking system to its families at home visits, intake and parent orientation at the start of the school year for both home-based and center-based families. Staff trained volunteers on what counts as in-kind and how to log their time using the system from any phone or device.It was a quick and easy process.
EXPLAIN
Consistently explain how you’re progressing toward your agency goal with regular weekly and monthly updates.
Sunrise set up a little friendly competition both in their home visiting and center based programs. Bulletin boards and elaborate displays inspired competitions between between the parents of home visitors and center-based classrooms generating excitement amongst the families. From an agency level, competitions between classrooms and centers caused “every day in-kind (with the hashtag #itcounts) to quickly became a “household name” throughout the agency. Families and staff alike were excited about in-kind like never before.
Download the full case studyOur Values
Integrity
Our clients and teams know they can depend on Kindly for a high level of care and expertise because we operate at a standard that is reliable and above reproach.
Community
We care, so we have a commitment to strengthen the communities we serve by embracing diversity and building true partnership. We are a part of the community, not just a service.
Kindness
We seek to inspire kindness wherever we go. We create a fun, warm, energetic culture, where giving and relationship building is at the heart of everything we do.
Service
Our passion is making a difference, so we lead with service. We operate from a place of contribution by seeking to serve - serve one another, serve our families, serve our clients.
Excellence
Our families, clients and staff deserve the best. Therefore, we offer best in class, unique solutions for diverse needs. We use best practice, evidence based solutions in all we do.
Innovation
There is always room for growth. You never arrive but instead evolve to meet the needs of the moment, learning from the past and forging an ever brightening future.