How 4MyCiTy Went From Manual Check-ins to Real-Time Reports

We helped make check-ins at 4MyCiTy three times faster. Staff complete them in seconds while the organization serves more than 5,000 participants each month. Leaders get real-time reports instead of piecing together inconsistent data from spreadsheets.

Those results grew from pairing the founder’s strong app vision with a close look at the people running and using the program.

4MyCiTy fights food waste through composting, food rescue, and green job creation. The organization provides surplus fruits and vegetables from grocery store distributors to people in its local community.

As the service grew more popular, so did the lines. Staff struggled to check people in quickly. They also re-keyed participant information and spent far too much time producing reports. 4MyCiTy needed a mobile platform that could improve the participant experience and give the organization better data.

The vision got the process started

4MyCiTy’s founder came to us with a well-formed vision. We sat down with him and members of our development team for an in-depth interview about the app and how he expected its features to work.

We discussed everything from registration and inventory to volunteer workflows and analytics. We also explored how the app should feel and talked through the first phase of work.

Then we went to the site.

We met with staff and volunteers. We watched the check-in process and saw how they tracked participant data over time. The visit surfaced details that a leadership-level view couldn’t fully capture.

Reporting could not depend on good intentions

One of those details appeared after checkout. Participants completed a survey about the produce they selected. Because 4MyCiTy had assigned a value to each item, those responses helped quantify the value the organization provided to the community.

Like most of us, the team expected people to fill out a survey that helped their own community. In practice, people needed a reminder. We built a follow-up system that alerted staff about an incomplete survey, so they could remind that participant during a future visit.

This is one way custom software projects fail: a well-formed plan gets treated as complete before the people doing the work have tested it.

Preserve the workflow, even when the shortcut is easier

4MyCiTy needed to flag participant accounts when staff had something to follow up on. The simplest version would have stopped a flagged person from proceeding through check-in.

We built a notification system instead. The participant could continue while senior staff received an alert. A later version added the participant’s contact information to that notification.

The simpler version would have prioritized the system over the person standing in line. 4MyCiTy’s workflow required a different choice.

The field kept shaping the app after launch

We returned to the site after the app was live and watched people use it. That’s when we saw the problems created by requiring participants to register before they could log in or pick up produce.

Some people were less comfortable with technology or spoke English as a second language. The app was available in both English and Spanish, but registering on-site could still be difficult.

We changed the process so a staff member could help a new participant register and check in at the same time. Staff identified new people in line and walked them through registration. They could finish check-in without sending anyone back to wait again.

Returning to the field after the app was live allowed us to see what was working and what needed to change. The 4MyCiTy story shows why launch is the halfway point.

What 4MyCiTy has now

QR scans process instantly, and the platform tracks food saved automatically. Staff can generate reports in real time.

The participant experience shows up in the feedback. One person wrote in an App Store review:

“Finally, a way we can track how much we save and help us see see what we actually get.”

The app had a 4.9-star rating within its first few months after launch. As of October 2026, that rating is 5.0. You can also read the full 4MyCiTy case study.

What an executive director can take from this

A detailed vision and feature list are a strong start for a successful app. Validate them with the people who will use the product. Ask what they need. When possible, have them show you.

If that validation can’t happen before development, take a structured, phased approach. Build the minimum needed for a functional product and put it in people’s hands. Learn from what they do before adding more.

Start with four questions:

• Where are people waiting, re-keying information, or working around the current process?
• Which workflow details are visible to staff and volunteers but not to leadership?
• Which steps assume participants will do something without being prompted?
• What can you watch people do in the field before launch and again after launch?

Chances are, your original ideas cover part of what your audience needs. There are also likely things they haven’t told you, or needs they can’t recognize until they try to use what you built. This is one of the central risks to manage in both custom mobile app development and broader custom software development. If you’d like to test an idea before anyone builds, that’s what our Roadmap Workshop is for.

Running a program on check-in sheets and spreadsheets? Tell us how it works today.