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Profiting From Lean in the Non-Profit World
Productivity improvement is not an issue only for manufacturing companies. Read on to learn how one Alberta-based non-profit organization has used productivity improvement and lean principles to better serve their clients and the community at large.
Kim Collister is the manager of learning and human resources at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Edmonton. In the past year Collister has been a part of bringing lean principles and process improvement to her non-profit through a grant from Alberta Employment and Immigration. While these principles were originally created for for-profit manufacturing concerns they can help any operation with practically any process.
Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) has seen improvements in handling and signing up volunteers, the lifeblood of their organization. They also became so productive that they actually decreased staffing during their surge times after implementing these policies.
We talked with Collister to find out more about how lean principles and process improvement concepts were applied to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Edmonton
PA: When did you first hear of lean principles and process improvement? KC: We were made aware of the learning opportunity through the Edmonton Chamber of Voluntary Organizations. That was back in early 2009 and then we were short listed and interviewed by Alberta Employment and Immigration. We ended up being chosen as the recipient of the grant, which included a lean expert, Gary Loblick, to assist us in providing some lean perspective within our agency.
PA: When did you think these ideas could be applied to your style of organization? KC: Right when the grant opportunity came out. We thought it would be a great opportunity not only in service delivery, our direct service to kids and families but within our support to service delivery; our finance, our fund development, our marketing and communications all of those other areas within our organization that support our service delivery.
PA: How did you start? KC:We sat down and met with Gary and determined what our objectives and strategies were going to be. Gary had introduced me to lean principles at a conference in Calgary so I could get a bit of background on what lean is all about. Then I brought that knowledge back to the office and with Gary’s help put together what we called our lean team.
When we put together the lean team we decided that it wasn’t just going to be a cross section of the agency it was going to be everybody. We did a lot of hands-on training with our staff to ensure that they understood what the lean concepts were because we wanted to integrate these ideas throughout all departments and all the staff.
PA: What kind of process improvements are we talking about? KC: We started with service delivery and we came up with the lofty goal of trying to ensure that our volunteers made it through our system in less time than they were currently. We were looking at least a 50% reduction in the time it takes to process a volunteer.
We’re nearing the end of our yearly cycle and we’ll have hard data to compare soon but we have noticed huge improvements in the amount of time our staff have allocated to functions. For example in 2008 we had to hire extra staff during our surge times and in 2009 we had a reduction in the amount of staff we allocated to do that function because we became more efficient in the work that we were doing.
When lean was coming in we were also doing a review of our departments. It coincided quite nicely. We restructured some the key responsibilities within some jobs. Instead of people doing a lot of everything we ensured that we standardized what they were doing and focused in on specific tasks so they could give a much more concentrated effort. We also talked to the staff on the front line and discussed with them what was working and what they thought the best way to do things was. That’s really a key principle of lean and the culture of our agency. It’s great that lean and our culture mesh in that it’s really all about the front line staff and ensuring that they are engaged and that they buy in.
PA: What’s the difference between applying lean principles from a for-profit to a non-profit environment KC: Lean principles are about ensuring that the client gets what they want in a more efficient and effective way. A lot of clients are looking for a product, like a thing; in a non-profit world it’s about people and kids. When the end result is helping children I think you get a bigger bang for your buck and you get more buy in. Our staff see that it’s about making kids lives better. You’re going to get people working hard no matter what principles are in place but when you have something like lean it’s just easier for everyone to buy into it.
PA: Any other specific examples KC: We’ve done some great work with the grant writing process. Grant writing within a non-profit is time consuming work; it involves a lot of people. It’s not just about the money; it’s about getting the details from human resources; it’s about the financials; it’s about ensuring service delivery gives all the details about what kind of work they’re doing to and the outcomes. We’ve worked very carefully on ensuring we put a process in place to gather all this information in the most effective way. This is something we’ve just started in the last several months but it allows for us to write a stronger grant.
PA: What was it like pitching lean to your board of directors? Did they require convincing? KC: No, our board is very supportive of all the work we do and in providing better and more efficient service to kids and families. They thought it was a great idea for us to be able serve more kids and in different ways. That’s our mission, to ensure that every child who needs a mentor has a mentor and they’re all about making that happen. If we’re able to do it more effectively and more efficiently without having to work our staff harder, they’re going to be all for it. It wasn’t a hard sell.
PA: Are these processes you’re telling me about applicable across the non-profit world? KC: That was one of the conditions of the grant. We were asked how we would help other organizations learn from the work that we’ve done. So far we’ve shared with other BBBS agencies and we are also presenting at our BBBS partner regional conference with the Alberta Mentoring Partnership. We’re doing a session on lean and the impact we’ve had within our agency. I’ve been asked to speak at a number of different functions. Speaking within the human resources/non-profit world about the successes we’ve had with lean. As the word gets out people invite us to come and speak about the work we’ve done.
It’s very applicable. There is that initial point of trying to reframe what the business world has done with lean and focusing it for your nonprofit but I think that when you look at and see the benefits you’re able to do that quite quickly.
PA: Do you have any advice for non-profits? What has to happen for lean thinking to really penetrate the world of non-profits? KC: I think it’s a great opportunity for any non-profit to engage in. There is lots of learning that can be done online and inexpensively. Truly the greatest benefit was the fact that someone came with a grant for us and someone came and worked with us who exists in the lean world.
A lot of non-profits don’t have the opportunities to send their staff to conferences and to hire consultants. What would be wonderful would be if the business world wanted to help a non-profit. They often have lean experts within their company; they could sponsor and support a non-profit with their expertise. That would be the best way for a non-profit to become engaged because it’s only when you really see what the advantages are from someone who works with this day to day do you really learn about what you might be able to implement it yourself.
Kim Collister is the manager of learning and human resources at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Edmonton. If you have any questions about applying lean principles to your non-profit you can contact Kim at k.collister@bbbsedmonton.org
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