Benefits for Food Banks

What is FoodBank Manager (FBM)

FBM is a paperless solution for food banks and food pantries that provides electronic management, tracking of resources and reporting for state, county, city, USDA, grants and private programs. Tracking of food, money, clothing, in-kind and services donations. Tracking of volunteer hours. All of the information FBM tracks allows the Food Bank the numbers they need and the Pantry the information they need to secure available funds, grants and more.

Who Uses FBM

All organizations from small to large that need to track and report on resources that are provided to the public should use FBM.

The Scope of Use

FBM is used in single private pantry locations or can be rolled out to hundreds of pantries that report to a single organization. These pantries can be networked together creating a central database installation to ensure resources are properly utilized by eliminating waste and fraud throughout the participating pantries. FBM provides instant, accurate, and consistent reporting that is relevant to the overseeing organization.

FBM MEETS USDA NEEDS

Go TEFAP Paperless
A massive amount of paper is generated to manage and process USDA food distributions. Rooms are stacked with USDA signature documents - wall to wall and floor to ceiling. The process of manually auditing all of these documents is overwhelming. Time and money is lost to this but computerizing this system will save countless man hours and money.

Custom TEFAP Reports
Every state has varying differences in how USDA should be tracked and handled. FBM is experienced with working with the DHS (Department of Human Services) partners to ensure that every requirement is met.

USDA Paperless Pantries
FBM allows the pantries to be a USDA Pantry and operate a paperless check-in system as long as the DHS partners allows for electronic signatures.

Guarantee Electronic Signature Procedures
FBM can require that electronic signatures are captured for each visit.

USDA Documentation Provided Electronically
FBM provides the Emergency Food Program Signature Sheet designed to meet the DHS partners reporting requirements electronically. This document is created using the signatures and data collected at each visit. The generated document is then exported out in PDF and CSV formats. This eliminates the manual paper documentation management and data entry requirements currently being used at all levels of the process.

Additional USDA Electronic Forms
FBM will provide any electronic forms that the organization requires from the pantries on a weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly basis and make them available for all of the pantries to use.

DHS Partners Oversight and Auditing
FBM allows the food bank to give reporting access to the DHS partners. This allows the DHS partners the ability to site audit, run reports and provide oversight from their desks.

TRACKING WITH FBM

Track Everything
FBM excels in tracking any resource in any way desired and is much more than a policing tool.

One Visit per Month for Each Household
FBM creates an environment where abuse can be identified and stopped. This prevents multiple visits during the same month to one location and multiple pantry visits (pantry hopping). Using the cross pantry visit tracking eliminates the fraud and waste that may currently exist. Visit frequency is not limited to just one visit per month. Visit frequency can be adjusted to any time period needed.

Association Privacy
FBM creates an environment where visit tracking information is shared while keeping the client's personal information private.

Assigned Locations
When using a multi-site setup, you may pre-assign the location each household should be visiting. If the household attempts to receive assistance from a different location, they can be identified and handled according to the regulations and recommendations that the pantry would follow.

Unlimited Tracking
FBM has no limit to the type or quantity of services that can be tracked. FBM will handle the tracking needs and will be a welcome tool for the pantries.

Quantify Eligibility Automatically
FBM allows for detailed logic to be added to each tracking method. This takes the guesswork away from the volunteer checking in clients as to their eligibility. Conditions frequently used are household size, income levels, zip code and participation in programs. Many more conditions can be applied.

WHAT FBM PROVIDES THE FOOD BANK

The Sox Box Guarantee
The Sox Box Team guarantees a quick and painless process rolling out FBM to member pantries.

Custom Development
FBM will meet the needs of the Food Bank and perform needed development. If at any time, FBM does not meet the required needs Sox Box will make the changes. (Development fees may apply)

Custom Installation of FBM
FBM will take the preferred starting database setup and create a template that will be distributed to all of the new pantries as they are brought online. This eliminates the need to set up hundreds of pantries manually.

Custom Centralized Control Interface for the Parent Food Bank
This interface allows real time access to the member pantries data for reporting purposes from a central location. The centralized control interface will eliminate data entry, late reports, faxed reports, illegible reports and other report related problems. Press a button on the control panel and the reports are completed from all of the member pantries. The custom control interface is available when a food bank reaches 100 domains.

CSV Data
All of the member pantries data is exportable from either the pantries portal or the centralized custom control interface in a CSV format. This eliminates the need to do the data entry that is currently done.

Private Cloud Environment of FBM
FBM can create a private server cloud environment. This is an optional setup and would incur additional charges based on the servers needed dependant on the number of location licenses purchased.

Offline Version of FBM
Ultimately, it is preferred to have all of the pantries online but internet access may not be possible in all cases. The Sox Box Team will work with you if this is an issue.

FBM SECURITY

Sox Box is Serious about Security
Security is important and the Sox Box Team takes it very seriously. Here you can see the steps Sox Box has implemented to make sure that only authorized people see the data that is being collected.

Physical Security
The FBM application and stored data reside in the Amazon AWS Virginia Data Center. Amazon has many years of experience in designing, constructing, and operating large-scale data centers. AWS infrastructure is housed in Amazon-controlled data centers throughout the world. Only those within Amazon who have a legitimate business need to have such information know the actual location of these data centers, and the data centers themselves are secured with a variety of physical controls to prevent unauthorized access.

Electronic Security
FBM follows all security policies and guidelines that the government provides that makes FBM HIPAA compliant. Being HIPAA compliant is a very high level of security and care is taken to keep that level of security at all times. Policies and guidelines are followed strictly at all times.

Detailed Security Information

  • FBM administrators utilize token or key-based authentication to access their virtual servers.
  • FBM uses Amazon's EC2 2048 bit RSA key pair, with private and public keys and a unique identifier for each key pair to facilitate secure access.
  • FBM utilizes the command-line shell interface, Secure Shell (SSH) keys, or sudo to enable additional security and privilege escalation.
  • FBM uses Amazon's firewall solution which automatically denies all inbound traffic unless we have explicitly created an opening.
  • FBM utilizes multiple security groups to enforce different ingress policies as needed.
  • FBM S3 and EC2 servers are accessed via Secure Socket Layer (SSL)-encrypted endpoints over the Internet and from within Amazon EC2.
  • FBM S3 servers are further protected by utilizing rotating encryption.
  • FBM RDS server is 'deny all' except for their accepted security group access.
  • FBM keeps all installations completely isolated from each other. Each clients uses their own private database installation.
  • FBM does not put any PHI (personal health information) or other sensitive data, including keys, in Amazon's S3 metadata.

Private Security
FBM provides each account a personal firewall where they can use standard IP firewall rules to limit access to the system. Uses for the private firewall can include:

  • Preventing volunteer access from their homes.
  • Preventing access to the system from other countries and states.
  • Allowing access from specified locations only.
  • Allowing access for specified groups or individuals from specified locations.

Roles and Permissions
FBM provides a comprehensive and fully customizable roles and permissions configurations. This enables very detailed security policies.

Auditing, Back-Ups and Disaster Recovery
FBM has auditing capabilities in place that allow security analysts to view detailed activity logs or reports to see who had access, IP address entry, what data was accessed, etc. This data is tracked, logged and stored in a central location for extended periods of time in case of an audit.

FBM has created and implemented a data backup plan. This acts as a contingency plan to protect data in case of an emergency. FBM creates retrievable exact copies (daily backups) and maintains them for 90 consecutive days. FBM stores the daily backups in a different physical location to accommodate disaster recovery and prevent data loss.

FBM PRICING, SUPPORT AND TRAINING

FBM is a Software as a Service (SaaS) system and users subscribe to the service on a monthly basis. Each location requires a subscription. A mobile food pantry would be considered one location for subscription purposes.

The subscription rate is $29.95 per month. This includes support and training for the pantry or food bank trainers and support personnel. Sox Box can assist in planning the rollout, initial setup and work with the team ensuring the elements needed for upstream reporting and pantry management is available.

Subscription Discount
A discounted subscription rate is available and is based on the number of domains purchased.

Training and Support
All training and support will be done via the phone or email. If an FBM representative is requested to be present onsite, Sox Box can provide a representative. (Contact Sox Box for onsite support fees)

Data Importing and Conversion
The existing data from the pantries can be converted and imported into the FBM subscriptions. (Contact Sox Box for details and associated fees)

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