About Baw Baw Food Relief 

Baw Baw Food Relief is a community-driven food support organisation that provides essential groceries to individuals and families facing hardship. Supporting over 5,500 families a year, their mission is to ensure no one in their local area goes without food, dignity, or support. Through their daily operations and volunteer-led services, they create a safe, welcoming space for people navigating difficult times.

The Problem

Baw Baw Food Relief needed a way to keep up with growing demand while supporting volunteers with simple, reliable systems. Behind every visit to Baw Baw Food Relief is a family navigating real hardship. Their systems needed to reflect that. With over 130 volunteers, one person became the single point of failure for managing systems and fixing issues.

"My phone rang a lot with requests for help from the team … if the computer had a hiccup or something had gone wrong. I soon realised I’d become the single point of failure as I was the techy person in the team, and the systems needed to be easier to manage." Dave Collins, Volunteer & Systems Lead, Baw Baw Food Relief

Their Pain Points

Time-consuming manual processes

• Reception staff and volunteers manually entered family details into spreadsheets while managing queues of people waiting for support.
  
  

• Paper forms were stored in physical folders, making it slow to find or update information.

Scaling was difficult with existing tools

• Supporting over 100 families per week placed increasing pressure on manual systems.
  
  

• Tracking returning families, new visitors, and service types became harder as demand grew. They wanted a way for their families to feel seen and remembered easily.
  
  

• Producing data for grant applications required pulling together years of historical information.

"Everything relied on one person knowing how it worked, which was me quite often. If something went wrong, the whole process slowed down." Dave Collins, Volunteer & Systems Lead, Baw Baw Food Relief

Designed with dignity at its core

• The team wanted an easy way to identify someone living in a Safe House on one screen.
  

• Discretion- the team also wanted a way to add sensitive information to a system so that people didn’t have to repeat their story.
  
  

• The system automatically identifies whether a family has pre-paid or is eligible for the pay-it-forward fund.
  
  

Blaze Your Trail’s Salesforce Solution

A fully integrated Salesforce solution

Working closely with Baw Baw Food Relief's reception volunteers from day one, Blaze Your Trail built a centralised Salesforce platform designed around how the team actually operates; simple enough for any volunteer to pick up, powerful enough to scale.

A single system for every interaction
We knew it was important for things to be simple. Families are registered, managed, and supported through one screen. Staff can search visit history, dietary needs, allergies, and sensitive notes instantly, without switching between systems or asking colleagues.

Guided workflows that do the heavy lifting
Service delivery, donations, and shop visits are logged in seconds through structured inputs. Data is captured once and flows automatically, eliminating duplication and reducing errors.

Built-in dignity
We built a system that automatically identifies whether a family has pre-paid or qualifies for the pay-it-forward fund, so staff never need to ask sensitive financial questions. Discreet notes, including safe house status, mean families don't have to repeat their story.

Real-time reporting, ready when needed
Live dashboards surface daily activity at a glance. Grant data is always accurate and accessible, with no manual compilation required.

Practical support that goes beyond implementation

“For nonprofit organisations, expert Salesforce support is often out of reach. Blaze Your Trail changes that. Every nonprofit they work with gets free access to "Ask Us Anything" sessions;  three times a week, no extra cost, no question too small.”

When Dave needed 130 volunteers loaded into the system and didn't have the time to do it himself, Blaze Your Trail took it off his plate entirely. It was very generous of them to offer to provide this time. It was done within two days.

The Impact

Baw Baw Food Relief has transformed how it operates, with Salesforce in place, the team can focus less on administration and more on delivering essential support.

"Blaze Your Trail understands nonprofits and how volunteers actually work. They built something that fits our world, not the other way around. We’d absolutely recommend them to any organisation looking to grow and make a bigger impact, they are absolutely amazing!" Dave Collins, Volunteer & Systems Lead, Baw Baw Food Relief

Time saved and pressure reduced

• Manual reporting has been replaced with real-time dashboards.
  
• Fewer system issues mean less disruption during busy periods.
  
• Volunteers can complete tasks quickly without needing technical support.
  
• Reliance on one individual has significantly decreased. 

Better experiences for volunteers and families

• Reception teams can greet returning families with confidence and provide deeper context, such as whether a family has paid their next donation in advance.

• Faster processes reduce waiting times and improve service by putting everything on one screen and making it easy to read notes from the previous visit.
  

• Conversations are more personal, supported by accessible information.

"We have a facility to write notes on Salesforce - they can flag that someone came in last week and there was this issue, or she's in a safe house, so don't ask anything else. We respect all that sort of stuff." Dave Collins, Volunteer & Systems Lead, Baw Baw Food Relief

A system built for growth

• The organisation can now handle increasing demand without added pressure.
  

• Grant applications are supported by accurate, accessible data, which can be provided much faster, replacing hours spent trawling through spreadsheets.
  

• Volunteers can get real-time insights into how many families and individuals they've supported, and the types of support they’ve provided.
  

• The system can now capture how many families have had an emergency food shop for their family, received fresh greens, or had an emergency ‘staples’ bundle. 

"One day last week, we had 40 families through the door. Not only did we feel it was busy, but we could also see it was busy. The dashboard gives the team that sense of achievement at the end of the day. We can now see exactly what we’re doing day to day. It gives the team a real sense of achievement and clarity." Dave Collins, Volunteer & Systems Lead, Baw Baw Food Relief

Why Did You Choose Blaze Your Trail?

“Baw Baw Food Relief chose Blaze Your Trail because they needed a partner who understood how volunteer-led organisations operate. 

We were looking for a solution that would help them grow without adding complexity or requiring technical expertise. Blaze Your Trail’s approach, combining deep nonprofit understanding with practical, hands-on support, that would give us the confidence to invest in a system that would truly work for our team.”  Dave Collins, Volunteer & Systems Lead, Baw Baw Food Relief