Nami Volo

To help those whom help. The ultimate volunteer manager.

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Inspiration

NAMI Yolo county needed a more efficient way to manage volunteers, track hours, and streamline communication. As students passionate about mental health advocacy and inspired by people helping others, we saw an opportunity to build a digital solution that lightens the administrative load and empowers volunteers to stay engaged.

What it does

NAMI VOLO is a volunteer management web app designed specifically for nonprofit organizations like NAMI Yolo. It allows admins to: • Create and manage volunteering events • Track volunteer sign-up, training status, hours • Own recruitment page using google forms as an example • Ways to filter through volunteers by their training status Volunteers can: • Sign up for events • Log their hours • View upcoming opportunities according to their status (Search feature where they can lookup diff opportunities and see the courses they still need to complete in order to be able to do them) • Track their impact over time

How we built it

We built NAMI VOLO using: • React and TypeScript for the frontend • Material UI for a clean, accessible user experience • Firebase for real-time database, authentication, and hosting • Figma for UI/UX design and prototyping • GitHub for version control and collaboration

Challenges we ran into

• Structuring the stepper-based event creation UI while keeping it intuitive
• Managing real-time data updates across volunteer/admin views
• Creating a responsive design that works well
• Learning new tools like Firebase and typescript under tight time constraints! Our team was mainly beginners

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• Designing an experience that feels welcoming and aligned with NAMI’s values, existing company website 
• Collaborating efficiently across frontend, backend, and design teams as beginners
• Successfully built a responsive, stepper-based event creation interface using React, Material UI, and TypeScript!

What we learned

• How to design for real nonprofit use cases
• Best practices for managing React component state in multi-step forms
• Firebase’s authentication and real-time database integration
• The importance of team collaboration & feedback early in the design process

What's next for Nami Volo

• 📱 Release a mobile app version so volunteers can sign up and log hours on the go
• 🔄 Implement real-time updates for event changes, reminders, and hour tracking
• 🎨 Refine the UI/UX to make it even more intuitive, accessible, and welcoming
• 🤝 Collaborate directly with NAMI Yolo staff to pilot the platform and gather user feedback
• 🌐 Scale the platform to support other NAMI chapters and community nonprofits

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