I'm just starting a yearlong AmeriCorps project and am in the process of developing and overhauling a furniture donation/distribution system, as well as one for personal needs items.
The "old" system was basically a mess of disorganized information on index cards in a filing box. I used the new Bento program to create a personal database of donors and clients, and it seems to work great for me. Much more efficient. If I get a call for a twin bed donation, I can type in "twin bed" and see all of our clients that need a twin sized bed without digging through 100+ index cards, etc. My only concern is that when I leave I want the people in the office to be able to still use the system that I develop. As Bento is Mac only, and they all use Windows machines this is not really an option. I've downloaded the Filemaker Pro trail and might want to use this. They have expressed wanting to put the entire client directory (not just the small sub-set that I work with) into a computer database. Any know of some good (free) online tutorials for getting started with a basic Filemaker database? Especially one that shows how to customize and pretty up (themes, layouts) a data-base so as to make the transition easier for computer- phobic people? thanks, rick
