Miracle Messages: Making Inroads to Alleviate Homelessness

The COVID-19 pandemic forced businesses of every size and industry to adapt to a socially-distant society. To replace in-person experiences, organizations turned to the digital world, using software solutions like DocuSign to find new and better ways to deliver their goods and services. Miracle Messages is a charitable organization dedicated to helping those experiencing homelessness rebuild their social support networks and rediscover their sense of self. This organization is using DocuSign eSignature to streamline volunteer management with simplified legal paperwork and accessible signing.

Miracle Messages’ core program is a family reunification service that sends messages from those isolated by homelessness to their loved ones in the hopes of facilitating a reunion. Their volunteers work as “digital detectives,” using web searches to track down family members and deliver videos from their unhoused relatives. Though all of Miracle Messages’ programs were already virtual before the pandemic, their volunteers occasionally engaged with the unhoused community in person by helping them record their video messages, or talking about Miracle Messages’ programs in homeless shelters.

The halting of in-person activities in the spring of 2020 had especially isolating effects on people experiencing homelessness. Headquartered in San Francisco, Miracle Messages employed the power of DocuSign eSignature to modernize paperwork and harness the efforts of volunteers based anywhere in the world. Miracle Messages sets the example for other nonprofits working to increase their charitable impact by using DocuSign to:

• Digitally sign release of liability waivers
• Securely share information
• Flexibly provide consent on any device, from virtually anywhere

Using electronic signatures to reconnect families and facilitate volunteer efforts

To combat pandemic solitude, Miracle Messages began a program called Miracle Friends in which volunteers pair up with their unhoused neighbors for weekly phone calls and texts. Whether participating in this Miracle Friends program or in their family-reunification service, all Miracle Messages volunteers must sign legal waivers releasing the organization from liability in the case of accidents.

DocuSign eSignature streamlines the process of completing volunteer paperwork by allowing easy oversight from program directors and enabling digital signatures on practically any mobile device, from anywhere in the country. By using eSignature to expedite the process of obtaining volunteer consent, Miracle Messages can reach more volunteers and reunite more families than ever before. If any volunteers want to take their efforts in person by going to a homeless shelter or meeting their Miracle Friends partner, Miracle Messages has the confidence that they have the proper liability protection.

DocuSign digital agreements also integrate seamlessly with the other tech tools Miracle Messages uses such as Zapier and Airtable—creating more efficient workflows and saving time in helping the unhoused.

Spreading volunteer opportunities with digitized paperwork

Once Miracle Messages started using DocuSign agreement tools, it opened the door to myriad  possibilities for productive integration. With DocuSign eSignature’s ability to securely obtain information, such as bank account and routing numbers, Miracle Messages envisions expanding its program to provide the homeless with direct cash transfers so they can put money towards necessities like housing, food, and transportation. In whatever new initiative the organization begins, Miracle Messages can rely on DocuSign to provide a safe and intuitive method for consolidating signatures, gaining consent, and gathering sensitive information.

In addition to providing an easy-to-use platform to connect and automate the entire agreement process, DocuSign runs an ongoing global initiative, DocuSign Impact Corps, which offers free assistance to our nonprofit customers seeking to optimize their implementation of our technology. As nonprofits collaborate with DocuSign to accomplish their missions, we are here to help leverage our tools to get work done faster, more securely, and at lower cost.

Learn more about how nonprofits can use DocuSign eSignature to do more to support the causes and the people they care about. Register to watch our recent webinar, Nonprofits’ Stories on Mission Delivery with DocuSign.

Miracle Messages is always accepting volunteers. If you are interested in volunteering, please sign up at miraclemessages.org/getinvolved.