Supporting low income families during a cost-of-living crisis

Alexandra Rose is a national charity that works to alleviate food poverty by giving families access to fresh fruit and veg.

Since 2014, they’ve been providing support to thousands of families and children through their Rose Vouchers. Families redeem vouchers locally for healthy and affordable food, helping children get a better start.

Demand for vouchers has been increasing and the charity’s organisational model has been continuing to evolve as it strengthens the systems and assets it needs to deliver its mission. 

They asked dxw family member Neontribe to help them reach more families around the country by freeing up time spent administering a heavily manual process to grow the project.

Outcome

By joining up the process and bringing it online for everyone involved, Alexandra Rose has been able to support more families than ever before and meet the increasing need for access to fresh fruit and veg.

Last year, Alexandra Rose reached a new milestone of 2 million Rose Vouchers distributed and spent with 58 different market traders and greengrocers. Representing a significant increase in the rate at which they have been able to expand their support.

There is a higher retention rate of children’s centres and traders taking part in the project, simply because the process is easier.  

“The first million vouchers took 7 years for us to achieve in comparison to the second which only took us 18 months. Although this is likely to have been influenced by the pandemic and cost of living crisis, the digital solution has allowed us as a charity to accelerate voucher distribution and manage the demand from the public.

We are immensely proud of our achievements since 2014 and how we’ve been able to expand our outreach. The number of families we’ve been able to reach has risen from 300 to over 3,000.”

Head of Operations, Alexandra Rose Charity

What we did

One of the main challenges Alexandra Rose faced was the creation, processing and shipping of Rose Vouchers to market traders, greengrocers and children’s centres.

This used to involve high volumes of manual work, including recording each voucher number and related activities on spreadsheets. Children’s centres had to keep distribution records on paper. Market traders looking to cash in their vouchers also had to record the voucher numbers on paper and return them to the charity. 

The team at Alexandra Rose would manually generate statistics on the number of families and children benefiting from Rose Vouchers and the number of traders and partners involved in the programme. This increased the risk of human error and, with it, inaccurate data. They wanted to be able to track each voucher’s journey and understand where families needed additional support. 

A way to reach more families more easily

Together Neontribe and Alexandra Rose created a digital solution that enables the operations team, market traders and children’s centres to scan Rose Vouchers. The app, which can be downloaded to any mobile device, is used by traders to request payment for vouchers.

The online service enables Alexandra Rose staff to manage the creation, distribution and reimbursement of vouchers. And delivery partners to manage family recruitment to the scheme, voucher distribution and overall project monitoring data. 

The simplified process means children’s centres can register new families much faster. For market traders using the app, payments are sent far quicker than before, and there are no delays for the charity’s finance team.

As well as making the process significantly more efficient for everyone, the charity now has accurate data that it can rely on. They can access and download the data they need to help with the ongoing management of the project.

Data-driven insights

The charity can now track the Rose Voucher journey from start to finish. Providing information about when and where a voucher was issued, by which trader, and how long it is in circulation prior to the transaction. 

This more detailed reporting helps the charity better understand their beneficiaries, churn rates and which centres or traders are processing the most transactions.

They can record how many families are currently receiving help from Government initiatives like Healthy Start (which offers formula milk and fresh produce to children under four). Giving them an overview of vulnerable people that might need more ongoing support. They are also able to monitor for potentially fraudulent transactions. 

This kind of increased transparency is important to prospective funders and the continued growth of the fruit and veg project.