How TEL HI built a continuous survey and feedback app to improve staff and parent engagement using low-code

The company

Founded over 136 years ago, the Telegraph Hill Neighborhood Center (TEL HI) is one of San Francisco’s oldest nonprofit organizations. What began with two nurses serving underserved neighborhoods has grown into a multi-generational institution supporting infants, children, families, and seniors through licensed childcare, after-school programs, and essential senior services.

Serving a city as diverse as San Francisco, TEL HI supports families speaking more than 170 languages and partners closely with city and state agencies to deliver publicly- and privately-funded programs. For over a century, its mission has remained constant: maximizing impact with limited resources while preserving dignity, access, and opportunity for the communities it serves.

The problem

Like many nonprofits in the United States, TEL HI faces constant pressure to do more with limited resources. Funding comes from a complex mix of public grants, private donations, and restricted funds, each tied to specific programs such as infant care, after-school education, or senior services. These funds must be tracked and reported with precision, and any misalignment between operations, reporting, and finance can quickly become a risk to compliance, funding continuity, and organizational credibility.

In the past, TEL HI used disconnected tools to manage donors, programs, and internal communication. Although Salesforce supported donor management, it was hard to customize, relied heavily on manual data entry, and offered limited real-time insight. More critically, the organization lacked real-time visibility into program performance, staff engagement, and parent satisfaction.

The solution

To address these challenges, TEL HI partnered with Sai Mithra LLC, a Zoho partner, and Transform-CX, a global business solutions provider,to build a custom application on Zoho Creator. Rather than forcing TEL HI to adapt its processes to rigid software, the solution was designed around how the organization actually operates.

The result was a purpose-built application known internally as BalanceWise IQ, focused initially on strengthening feedback loops, improving communication, and laying the foundation for broader operational transformation.

Weekly employee experience survey

This module enables teachers and staff to respond to short, rotating weekly surveys designed to capture emotional well-being, engagement, and workplace support. One core question remains constant, while others rotate from a curated library of nearly 190 questions. The system applies behavioral and engagement models to surface early warning signs and trends, allowing leadership to intervene proactively rather than reactively.

Parent feedback and engagement

Designed specifically for parents, this module captures insights into children’s experiences, communication quality, and overall satisfaction with TEL HI programs. Weekly check-ins replace traditional annual or quarterly surveys, creating a living feedback loop that strengthens trust and transparency between families and educators.

Analytics and dashboards

Zoho Creator's built-in analytics provide intuitive dashboards that visualize trends across staff engagement, parent sentiment, and program health. Leaders can quickly understand what is working, where support is needed, and how changes impact outcomes over time.

Designed for speed and adaptability, the application gives TEL HI the ability to evolve in step with its community. Changes to surveys, workflows, and dashboards can be made as needs shift, often within days or even hours. From initial concept to live deployment, the application was designed, built, and launched in approximately five weeks, a timeline that few legacy platforms could realistically support.

Benefits and ROI

By introducing a continuous feedback model, TEL HI has begun to realize tangible operational and cultural benefits. While still early in the journey, the organization is already seeing measurable improvements in communication, engagement, and efficiency which are critical outcomes in a resource-constrained nonprofit environment.

• Improved communication between teachers, supervisors, and parents through continuous feedback loops.
• Identified organizational and program issues early, before they escalated.
• Increased employee engagement and reduced frustration among frontline staff.
• Expected reduction in employee turnover from 55–60% annually to less than half over time.

Looking forward

The success of the initial Zoho Creator implementation has opened the door to a broader digital roadmap for TEL HI. Next on the horizon is migrating donor and grant management off Salesforce and into a unified Zoho-based platform, working closely with Sai Mithra, enabling tighter integration between fundraising, program delivery, and reporting.

For TEL HI, the long-term vision extends beyond internal optimization. By modernizing operations and embracing flexible technology, the organization aims to become a model for how nonprofits can sustain impact, improve transparency, and better support the people who make their mission possible.