Five Ways You Can Improve Your Nonprofit's Programmatic and Operational Efficiency
This year hasn’t been easy for nonprofits in the U.S. With so much change and uncertainty, one thing every organization is looking for is stability—so you can keep making an impact. From our experience at Harper Consulting Group, one of the most effective ways to achieve that stability is by boosting both programmatic and operational efficiency.
As we brainstormed resources to share with nonprofits, a few practical strategies kept coming up—approaches we’ve seen work for organizations of all sizes. Here are five recommendations to help your nonprofit start operating more efficiently today.
Be open to change!
If what your nonprofit has been doing isn’t working, it’s time to make a change. You can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results.
To increase your capacity and better serve your community, look for positive ways to pivot. Can you diversify revenue streams? Explore new nonprofit partnerships? Or use tools like a CRM to organize your data more efficiently? Small changes can lead to big improvements.
Clarify staff roles and communication
When everyone knows their responsibilities and how to communicate effectively, your nonprofit can operate at full capacity.
A best practice is to take inventory of roles and communication patterns. Is there overlap in what staff are working on? Could tasks be shifted to make work more efficient for each person? Do each team member’s responsibilities make sense, or were some assigned organically over time?
A simple way to start: ask everyone to write down their top three responsibilities and review the results together at your next staff meeting. Just a few minutes can reveal opportunities to streamline work and set your nonprofit up for smoother operations.
Develop templates for project management
Chances are, your organization has completed plenty of projects—and you’ve likely seen projects succeed and stumble along the way.
The best way to use that experience? Make future projects run more smoothly. Take a few minutes to identify what worked, note the pain points, and see if you can turn your successful processes into a reusable project management template. A little upfront planning can save a lot of time and headaches down the road.
Look to your nonprofit’s past successes & failures
Your organization’s past experience isn’t just for creating project templates. Use lessons from previous successes and setbacks to refine fundraising initiatives, adjust strategic priorities, or improve any other part of your operations. Learning from the past helps your nonprofit work smarter and become more efficient.
Make your nonprofit’s data easy to enter and access
Disorganized data can be one of the biggest obstacles to your nonprofit’s success. The good news is there are plenty of ways to get it under control. If you have resources to invest, a nonprofit-friendly CRM can make a huge difference. If budgets are tight, even a well-organized spreadsheet can help you work more efficiently.
You’ll be surprised how much time—and stress—you save by streamlining your data management process.
Need help boosting efficiency?
The nonprofit consultants at Harper Consulting Group are here to help—with free consultations! Over the years, we’ve worked with many nonprofits tackling inefficiencies in day-to-day operations. Got questions or want guidance? Don’t hesitate to reach out—we’d love to help.