HR Workforce Solutions
By Nonprofits, For Nonprofits
UST’s new blog series, “COVID-19 Nonprofit Stories,” illustrates how nonprofits and their employees have been coping with the unexpected challenges of the Coronavirus. Each blog spotlights one organization and the personal hurdles and workforce strategies they have encountered throughout this pandemic.
Our next story comes from another dedicated UST member—DARTS. Located in Minneapolis, DARTS provides personalized professional services to the aging demographic in the local Dakota County. By providing transportation and home services to their aging community, DARTS helps participants to lead more independent and fulfilling lives. Their services include such things as light housework, outdoor chores, home repair, caregiving resources, transportation and more.
Q: In general, how has your nonprofit been impacted by COVID-19?
A: DARTS provides services to help older adults stay engaged in the community and live in home of their choice. COVID-19 has caused older adults to isolate themselves and their caregivers are either isolated from their loved one or unable to have respite from them. The need for our services grew and we had to rapidly adapt to be able to provide them safely.
Q: What was the most immediate impact your organization faced during the onset of COVID-19?
A: DARTS provides bus rides for groups of older adults, as well as individuals. The group rides stopped immediately on March 13. We took our bus capacity to help fill a need that older adults were not able or willing to go out to food shelves to get groceries by partnering with area food shelves to help deliver those food supports.
Q: What do you see as the long-term impact COVID-19 will have on your organization?
A: How we gather as older adults will be affected for months to come and so we are becoming more nimble with technology to supplement in-person meetings and group gatherings. COVID-19 will help those with means to rely more on technology and it will make the gap larger between those who have resources and those who do not.
Q: How have you addressed employee mental health and wellness during this time?
A: We added intentional time during team meetings to talk about COVID related stress and social justice issues. We hold regular optional coffee breaks so that people can still connect, leaders are proactively reaching out to their team, we are allowing flexibility for those who can to work from home and we got brightly colored DARTS shirts for employees – a cheerful reminder as to how important they are to our community.”
Keep an eye out for future renditions of “COVID-19 Nonprofit Stories,” as we continue to gather insight from the nonprofit sector. In the meantime, check out our COVID-19 Resource Center for more nonprofit-specific content—including unemployment insights, workforce trends, employee wellness tips, COVID-19 FAQs and more!
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UST maintains a secure site. This means that information we obtain from you in the process of enrolling is protected and cannot be viewed by others. Information about your agency is provided to our various service providers once you enroll in UST for the purpose of providing you with the best possible service. Your information will never be sold or rented to other entities that are not affiliated with UST. Agencies that are actively enrolled in UST are listed for review by other agencies, UST’s sponsors and potential participants, but no information specific to your agency can be reviewed by anyone not affiliated with UST and not otherwise engaged in providing services to you except as required by law or valid legal process.
Your use of this site and the provision of basic information constitute your consent for UST to use the information supplied.
UST may collect generic information about overall website traffic, and use other analytical information and tools to help us improve our website and provide the best possible information and service. As you browse UST’s website, cookies may also be placed on your computer so that we can better understand what information our visitors are most interested in, and to help direct you to other relevant information. These cookies do not collect personal information such as your name, email, postal address or phone number. To opt out of some of these cookies, click here. If you are a Twitter user, and prefer not to have Twitter ad content tailored to you, learn more here.
Further, our website may contain links to other sites. Anytime you connect to another website, their respective privacy policy will apply and UST is not responsible for the privacy practices of others.
This Privacy Policy and the Terms of Use for our site is subject to change.
