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A Case Study: Gravity Forms, Gravity Flow, and the National Compassion Fund

By Megan Jones Published September 23, 2020

This latest case study comes from one of the Gravity Forms developers – Sam Webster. Before working at Gravity Forms, Sam worked as Director of Technology for the National Center for Victims of Crime.

There he worked on a project called the National Compassion Fund, which raises and distributes money to victims of mass shootings – this platform was created and powered entirely by Gravity Forms and Gravity Flow.

Due to the sensitive nature of this material and victim privacy rules, we can’t share any screenshots of the forms in question. However, this case study is a great example of Gravity Forms being used for an extremely worthy cause – one that we are very proud to play a small part in.

The National Compassion Fund: A Background

The National Compassion Fund raises and distributes money to victims of mass shootings without taking any overhead – so 100% of the money donated is distributed to the victims.

The Fund does amazing work, supporting victims and survivors of horrific events at a time when they most need it. The Compassion Fund also provides a single, trusted source for the public to donate directly to victims of mass crimes – this helps to forge community bonds, and enables people from all walks of life to support survivors and unite against violence.

While Sam worked on the National Compassion Fund, he worked on the Pulse Nightclub shooting, the Las Vegas shooting, the Parkland shooting, both Fort Hood shootings, and many others, ultimately distributing more than $100 million to victims.

Victims had to apply for these funds and were then vetted by a series of approvers in local law enforcement, the hospitals involved, pro-bono legal teams, and the FBI for eligibility – this system was made up of numerous forms, workflows, and integrations. Let’s find out more…

The Forms

Gravity Forms was used to create the forms that processed the applications from victims for funds from the National Compassion Fund. Our plugin was chosen for numerous reasons, but our track record of security and reliability, as well as our extensive ecosystem of add-ons and third-party integrations, ensured our capability for the task.

The forms allowed applicants to submit their information and document their experience during the specific mass casualty event that they encountered.

Once an application was submitted, it moved through a series of validations to ensure eligibility and help the applicant receive their money. Applications were validated by a pro-bono claims processor, law enforcement, the relevant hospital, a reviewing law firm, and finally the bank that then processed the payment.

Gravity Flow

This project made extensive use of Gravity Flow, one of the Gravity Forms Certified Developers. Gravity Flow is a powerful plugin that works in conjunction with Gravity Forms to automate business processes and implement custom solutions.

In this case, Gravity Flow powered the workflows that handled the multi-step review process, automating each step of the review process all the way through to the bank. Crucially, Gravity Flow also works by managing all data and workflows securely within a client’s own server – ideal for the National Compassion Fund who had to keep security and data protection at the forefront of all that they did.

Conditional Logic

These forms also relied heavily on conditional logic – each specific validations process was handled by conditional logic in the form, with each reviewer receiving a notification when their review was required. They then logged into the forms dashboard to do their review, keeping all information in one place, so nothing ever had to leave the site.

Other Integrations

Other key integrations included…

• User Registration Add-On – This add-on enabled new applicants to be registered and existing applicants to quickly log in.

• Signature Add-On – With Signature the National Compassion fund could collect official signatures of applicants, validators, and more.

• Dropbox Add-On – This add-on allowed for the saving and sharing of information.

• Zapier Add-On – With Zapier, the numerous forms were easily integrated with other necessary third-party services.

• Partial Entries Add-on – These were long forms, and Partial Entries enabled National Compassion Fund applicants to come back and finish them later if they couldn’t do it all in one session.

• GravityView – Another of Gravity Forms’ Certified Developers, GravityView was used to help with displays, taking the data submitted, and displaying it in comprehensive Views.

National Compassion Fund Project: Comments from Sam Webster

As mentioned, Sam Webster was Director of Technology for the National Center for Victims of Crime and the primary developer who designed and created the National Compassion Fund project.

One of the key questions we always ask with any case study is ‘What did you learn from creating this project?’ Here’s Sam’s reply…

“We made a lot of these forms, and they went through a lot of iterations. The most important thing we learned from making these forms was how critical it is, when designing a longer form with a lot of complicated logic and actions, to make sure you have everything mapped out before you start. Otherwise changes to the form can result in unanticipated breaks to conditional logic and conditional form actions. 

One big thing that’s changed since this project has been the accessibility of Gravity Forms. Since our project was victim services oriented and worked with vulnerable populations, we had to do a lot of work to make sure that key features were accessible. Gravity Forms now has all of that accessibility and more built right in, which would make this project a lot easier if we were to do it again today!”

Final Thoughts on the National Compassion Fund

This project showcases perfectly the scope of Gravity Forms and how it can be extended by integrations to suit advanced needs. The Gravity Forms eco-system of add-ons and integrations enabled a custom solution to be created for a unique situation – I’m sure you’ll agree it’s an interesting case study.

If you have an example of a custom solution that you’ve created using Gravity Forms please get in contact – we’d love to hear from you!