Village for Vets boosts compliance with Nutrient
“Nutrient will change the way you do business.”
Use case
Village for Vets sought automation to reduce errors, protect community trust, and stay audit-ready for federal grant compliance.
Challenges
- Manual processes using emails, spreadsheets, and PDFs led to inefficiencies, errors, and missed approvals.
- Delays in processing financial assistance put veterans at risk and damaged community trust.
- Lack of documentation consistency increased audit risks and jeopardized federal grant compliance.
Solutions
- Implemented Nutrient Workflow to automate key processes, including financial assistance, audits, and transportation requests.
- Built structured workflows with built-in approval stages to support compliance and streamline operations.
- Integrated documentation and communication within the platform, reducing reliance on email communication.
Results
- Reduced finance request turnaround time from 7 days to 1–2 days (up to 86 percent faster).
- Reclaimed 10+ hours per week of case manager time, allowing for more direct client support.
- Achieved 100 percent documentation consistency, eliminating audit risks and late-fee penalties.
Village for Vets(opens in a new tab) Director of Operations and Compliance Dr. Regina Lopez assists with supportive services for unhoused and at-risk veterans through federal grants. Within the first days of being on the job, she identified significant issues with monitoring efficiency. At the time, the majority of the company’s requests and approvals were processed manually through emails, spreadsheets, and Adobe Acrobat. These time-consuming, manual processes introduced errors and kept her team from doing what they do best: helping veterans. With grant compliance and community trust on the line, Dr. Lopez knew Village for Vets needed a better system.
From missed emails to mission risk: The need for a better system
Prior to Dr. Lopez’s arrival, Village for Vets relied on spreadsheets, Adobe-based PDFs, and email chains to send and sign temporary financial assistance requests. At the time, case managers would send a request by email to the supervisor, and the supervisor would sign and send it to the program manager. The program manager would then sign and send the request to accounting for processing. In one case, an approver missed a request due to the volume of emails in their inbox. This omission cost the organization in many ways, and according to Dr. Lopez, “Not only did we have to pay a good amount in late fees, but the participant was at risk of losing their apartment.” Fortunately, the team was able to meet with the landlord and rebuild trust. However, the likelihood of another instance like this occurring was far too risky.
Establishing and maintaining trust is a key factor in the work Village for Vets does, and Dr. Lopez stated that “If we don’t have that trust and we don’t have that reputation in the community, it makes it really hard for us to be able to do our job. And it makes it even more difficult for us to help that participant to obtain or maintain housing.” This instance served as a catalyst for change for Village for Vets, demonstrating the necessity of finding a functional system to aid the company in its efforts to combat homelessness.
Village for Vets’ use case was more than just automating its financial assistance request processes. What the company does impacts the entire community and its people, and finding a more efficient way to carry out its mission was critical for success. Fortunately, Dr. Lopez had used Nutrient Workflow Automation Platform, formerly Integrify, at her previous organization, and she knew its immense benefits firsthand. She immediately began to advocate to implement Nutrient Workflow. When asked if she had the capacity to run the software, she shared, “I will make the time, because I really believe that this will help the organization, and that’s all it’s done. It’s just one of the best decisions that we have made.”
Building smarter workflows to strengthen community impact
Immediately after implementing Nutrient Workflow, Village for Vets started seeing the potential of the platform, as Dr. Lopez and her team began building out workflows to replace inefficient processes that were previously handled through email. And now? “It’s just a part of our everyday function,” Dr. Lopez shared.
In addition to making Village for Vets’ temporary financial assistant request process more efficient, the team has also automated the following processes:
- Vehicle request process
- Audit process for compliance
- Lyft request process
- Temporary financial assistance processes — one for credit cards, and one for checks
- Emergency fund process, specific to donations received outside of federal funding
- Moving assistance process
- Vehicle checkout request process
- Healthcare navigation workflow
- Specialist referral workflow
Village for Vets quickly discovered that Nutrient Workflow was an ideal fit for its needs, as it allowed the company to incorporate approval stages into its workflow procedures. These multiple levels of approval were necessary, as they were an essential part of ensuring compliance with federal grant requirements. “Nutrient saves us in terms of audits, preserves our grant, and helps us improve our relationships with our community partners,” Dr. Lopez said.
“It’s really such a great product, and it helps nonprofits like mine to really make a name in our community.”
Faster approvals, stronger connections
Nutrient has given Village for Vets’ team a sense of relief when it comes to documentation. There’s no more chasing down documents; it’s all in the Workflow Automation system and can be located at any time. As Dr. Lopez said, "I wanted systems that give case managers more time with participants, not on documentation. They should focus on getting to know, supporting, and providing what our program promises.”
Nutrient also helped the organization benefit from an improved turnaround time for process approvals. Prior to Workflow Automation, processes that were accomplished via email would take up to a week’s worth of time from start to finish. Now, processes take as little as two days. And if they’re urgent, some processes can even be completed in a single day. Incorporating Workflow Automation has improved internal communication by streamlining discussions between case managers, supervisors, and accounting through the built-in discussion tab.
Speed
Village for Vets reduced finance request turnaround time from 7 days to 1–2 days, an improvement of 71–86 percent.
Efficiency
Village for Vets reclaimed more than 10 hours per week of case manager time formerly spent on paperwork.
Compliance
Village for Vets achieved 100 percent documentation consistency, eliminating audit-triggering gaps and saving late-fee costs.
Continuing to build trust within the community
Thanks to Nutrient’s support, Village for Vets successfully overcame its issues with documentation and communication by making processes more efficient and organized. The old mix of spreadsheets, PDFs, and emails was replaced by a simple and compliant workflow. What used to take a week now takes a day. And what used to take case managers away from clients is now a simple process that keeps grants, builds community trust, and gives veterans the help they need. Looking ahead, Village for Vets is confident that Nutrient will scale with its mission.
