Is your foundation installing new grantmaking or CRM software? Many times, staff are excited to have a new system, but they are hesitant to give up what is familiar and proven. Some philanthropic organizations address these emotions by developing a comprehensive software install plan. Such a plan addresses process change management steps as well as the questions, concerns, and reservations of the people who will implement them. Leaders who took these human factors into account say their investment in thorough planning more than paid off.
More than one hundred philanthropic organizations change grantmaking systems each year. This once-in-a-decade or so task is an expensive and risky venture. Given that most foundations install a new system quite infrequently, employees are understandably unfamiliar with the conversion process. And even though some employees may be tired of the old software, are they ready to significantly change their work processes, roles, and controls to maximize the new system?
One foundation spent a couple million dollars on a new grantmaking system and CRM only to have employees bypass the labor-saving features of the new system. They continued their manual work arounds, including old work steps, spreadsheets, and piles of paper. All the expensive, state-of-the-art bells and whistles that the new system offered went unused.
Achieving buy-in from staff members who will use the new system on a daily basis is a huge contributor to software success. Therefore, meeting employees where they are and readying them to implement the changes ahead is an important project step. Recently we surveyed philanthropic leaders, asking what steps they included in their new software plan to prepare employees for the pending conversion. More than half (58%) of survey respondents said they invested in human and process change management training during their new system install.
Their outcomes? Participants said their training addressed human change-management skills, empowering employees to question how work is done, business policies, and roles and responsibilities. Many also said they believed this training helped them achieve improved outcomes during the new software install and ongoing.
Is your philanthropic organization interested in learning how human and process change management training looks? Register for this upcoming free webinar: Not Just Plug and Play – Process, People and New System Install.
Also, contact Lee Kuntz to discuss your journey and challenges. Lee can share how others who have installed new software have achieved success by incorporating both human and process change management training into their installation plan. Many foundations have helped their employees embrace new and better ways to approach their daily tasks using a new software system You can too!
Here in Minneapolis and across our nation, these are challenging times for nonprofit and philanthropic organizations. Local emergencies, impactful opportunities to speak up, and the COVID-19 pandemic are creating serious new needs in communities across the country. Organizations that were already operating at or near capacity find themselves trying to stretch their resources even further while simultaneously managing the disruptions caused by a shift to remote work, declining donations, and a volatile stock market. As a result, many organizations are struggling to meet their goals.
Learn how some organizations are going virtual to improve their nonprofit operations and results to their community through my recently published article in The Sustainable Nonprofit blog from PND by Candid.
Go Virtual to Improve Results During Emergencies
Have you installed new software that was universally embraced and paid for itself quickly, perhaps even within 24 months?
Attaining widespread employee buy-in at an affordable price is a worthy but difficult goal. Yet as new software competes for funding with other good ideas, achieving this is important. Business process redesign can help philanthropic organizations realize this measure of success.
Philanthropic organizations replace software, including their big grantmaking systems, every five to twenty years. That makes sense, as the philanthropic industry is growing. Contributions to donor-advised funds totaled $37.12 billion in 2018. This represents an 86 percent increase in contributions over the past five years. The related grants increased likewise.
Growth in grantmaking often necessitates employing new tools to stay ahead of the workload. Leaders of philanthropic organizations need to build a strong case to justify investment in costly new software. The best-case scenario is when the new software pays for itself within 12 to 24 months. In order to achieve such a favorable return on investment, employees throughout the organization need to be open to change and willing to explore all that the software has to offer. Business process redesign engages employees in fully learning and embracing new software, inviting them to fully leverage it.
Recently, three experienced technology leaders and I spoke at a Technology Association of Grantmakers webinar about how to leverage business process redesign to promote software acceptance and a quick return on investment. Key points:
Check out this new, free tool that can inform your thinking about software implementation: Business Process Redesign Steps for New Software Success.
Contact me, Lee Kuntz, at info@improveprocess.net for a no-cost discussion of your situation and recommended steps to redesign your business processes.
Foundations have realized substantial benefits from their new software investment through leveraging our business process transformation coaching and training. You can too!
Most philanthropic and nonprofit organizations were working at or near capacity before the COVID-19 health crisis. But the virus has created serious new needs for the populations they serve, and many organizations are grappling with the disruption caused by a shift to remote work, declining donations, and an unpredictable stock market.
While it might all seem overwhelming at times, there are resources that can help with this increased demand. Live, online process transformation training and coaching from Innovation Process Design can help. This skill building resource enables organizations to increase capacity and enhance their ability to positively impact targeted populations while keeping staff safe. That means organizations can address this abundance of new opportunities without putting an undue burden on their team.
Training and coaching work together to improve existing processes and increase an organization’s capacity. Training allows organizations to create a culture of improvement while building the muscle they need to make substantive changes. Meanwhile, coaching advances that foundation by allowing organizations to take a deep dive into a specific problem.
Because COVID-19-related volatility is projected to continue for at least the next six months, taking organizations to the beginning of the giving season, increasing capacity will be essential to fulfilling the nonprofit mission. Taking a wait-and-see approach may cause organizations to miss opportunities now and require that they play catch-up instead of hitting the ground running in October. By optimizing capacity now, organizations can address existing needs and prepare to reach year-end goals.
Think about it this way: Effective coaching, which requires a foundation of training, could allow employees to recapture between 30% and 60% of their time – from 500 to 1,500 hours per year. That’s good for now, when many employees are figuring out the finer points of working remotely, and it’s also beneficial later, when operations return to normal.
Building capacity doesn’t have to disrupt operations, either. Our online meetings take place over a couple of weeks to ensure they will not take team members away from their normal workflows. Sessions are conducted in small groups, allowing for easy interaction and opportunities for all questions to be answered.
Innovation Process Design has years of experience helping community foundations and philanthropic organizations optimize processes and workflows. We use tech-savvy tools and engaging content to share best practices that have been proven over the past 20 years. We give employees concrete projects to work on that will help them recapture time.
That time will be more important than ever as organizations work to weather an unprecedented health crisis – and help their communities do the same.
I welcome the opportunity to answer questions, to discuss your organization’s unique challenges, and to tell you more about how virtual process improvement can help.
Is your office in remote mode? So many teams are now working from home as we collectively battle the COVID-19 pandemic. Remote work can reduce personal and community health risk. Yet it can be unhealthy for your organization. Remote work can be slower and less accurate, impacting your organization and your community. A key question in this transition is: With this big change of unknown duration, how will your team continue to serve your community in a seamless way?
Teams that move to remote work find key risks.
o Paper piles of work are no longer visible, resulting in stalled or forgotten work.
o In-person double checks and communication may not happen, resulting in errors and embarrassment.
o Quickly made process adjustments to fit remote operations create the risk of errors and missed steps.
o Back-and-forth online communications may slow work down, consuming already tight capacity.
Remote work is an opportunity to redesign your processes to regain capacity, maintain quality, keep up speed, and preserve your reputation. Some organizations are using proven process transformation tools to achieve these goals. For example, as a result of our process transformation work, one foundation recaptured time while delivering error-free results for three years. This group became an effective cross-organization team, performing better and accomplishing more in a consistently high-quality manner.
Is this what you are looking for?
If your team is going remote, connect with process improvement coach Lee Kuntz about a live, online checkup for your key processes. We use our proven process transformation coaching, training, and tools to help you mitigate risk and deliver upon your organization’s commitments. Checking up on small processes can be done in a couple hours.
Contact Lee to discuss how your team can create a seamless transition to remote processes while maintaining and growing great results.
When a foundation updates its software system, the purchase typically requires years of research and a financial investment that can run well into six figures. So it’s important to make the most of that purchase. The most effective way to do that is to use system upgrades as an opportunity to reexamine internal processes.
In this live, no-cost webinar, you will learn the best practices for redesigning and maximizing business processes and practices during new system implementation.
Speaker: Lee Kuntz, Certified Process Coach, CLSSBB
Webinar: Thursday, February 24, 2022; 1:00 pm–2:00 pm CT
Register in advance for this meeting:
Once you register, you will receive a Zoom meeting invite. We hope you will join us for this free informational session.
Every day teams can manage their processes to deliver winning results. By both improving and controlling critical processes, these teams can both make a big impact and get home at night.
Most of us have improved processes. We have tweaked the steps of work, fixed breaks, and automated. The next step—process management—is a powerful approach that can be the difference between failure and success.
Now you can measure your team’s process management muscles through an eight-question survey. This survey helps you see beyond tweaking, to fix pain points and transform outcomes. Through the survey’s results, you can discover your team’s process management strengths and opportunities.
Select the survey answer that best reflects how your team handles your critical processes. Eight-Question Survey Link
Do you want to learn more about how these important concepts can create results for your team? Then complete the survey, add your email address, and submit your answers, thereby emailing yourself your answers.
Our process coach and trainer Lee Kuntz will also receive a copy. Your contact information will not be used for any other purpose. Lee will then connect with you to hear and answer any questions about how each of these key process capabilities can help your team achieve the results you need.
Contact Lee today to discuss your challenge.
