Sara Duane, Senior Consultant within EK’s Strategic Consulting practice, and EK client Tom Summerfelt, former Chief Research Officer at Feeding America, presented on November 7, 2023 at KMWorld. The talk, “Nonprofit KM Journey to Success: Lessons & Learnings at Feeding America” focused on best practices for designing and implementing KM strategies that directly align with nonprofit organizational goals. Duane and Summerfelt used their first-hand experience developing a multi-year comprehensive KM Strategy for Feeding America to outline real-world considerations and examples of: Unique KM challenges faced by organizations in the nonprofit space Considerations for strategic priorities and KM roadmaps for nonprofits How to describe the business impact of KM for nonprofits

1. Nonprofit KM Journey to
Success:
Lessons & Learnings at Feeding America
KMWorld Conference 2023
November 7, 2023

2. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Outline
Introductions Feeding
America’s KM
Challenges
KM Strategic
Priorities
Toolkit for
Success
What You Will Learn
⬢ Unique KM challenges faced by organizations in the non-profit
space
⬢ Considerations for strategic priorities and KM roadmaps for non-
profits
⬢ How to describe the business impact of KM for non-profits

3. ⬢ Has years of experience in the research realm across
industries, including non-profit, healthcare,
technology, and life sciences
⬢ Served as Feeding America’s Chief Research Officer,
leading the development and execution of Feeding
America’s strategic research agenda
TOM
PREVIOUS CHIEF RESEARCH OFFICER, FEEDING AMERICA
SUMMERFELT
SARA
CONSULTANT, ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
DUANE
⬢ Serves as project manager for knowledge,
information, and data strategy projects as well as
technical implementation
⬢ Developed complex KM Strategies and Roadmaps
for organizations in the non-profit, construction,
real estate, and federal sectors
ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE

4. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Feeding America & Enterprise
Knowledge Overview
In November 2022, Feeding America engaged EK to conduct a Knowledge Management
Assessment. Over the course of 4 months, EK analyzed the current state of Feeding America’s
KM strengths and challenges through discovery work with stakeholders, developed target state
solutions and a multi-year iterative KM Roadmap, and delivered actionable pilots to jumpstart
Feeding America’s KM transformation.
This project yielded the core deliverables shown below.
KM Current State
Report &
Benchmark
Content Cleanup
Plan
Technology
Solution
Recommendation
KM Target State
Report &
Benchmark
KM Roadmap &
Recommendations
KM Pilots
Prioritized Backlog
With EK’s support, Feeding America is now moving into pilot implementation.

5. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Feeding America’s KM Journey: By the
Numbers
14+ 400+
200 &
60,000
Systems that team
members access and sort
through on a day-to-day
basis, indicating a need for
clear system purpose
statements
Content owners across
Feeding America’s intranet,
leading to a need for strong
content governance
Food banks & partner
organizations across the
country, emphasizing the
need for a standardized
and streamlined user
experience

6. ROI of KM: Direct and Ancillary Savings
Enterprise Knowledge’s internal research has found that an organization’s employees may spend up to 40% of
their time looking for information, waiting for answers from others, or recreating information that exists.
Feeding America’s KM Roadmap significantly reduces the amount of time employees spend looking for
information, leading to thousands of dollars in time-savings.
When Feeding America estimates that $1 can turn into 10 meals, money saved on search
provides the opportunity to serve more meals.
Greater Productivity and
More Meals Served
Employee Retention Food Bank Outcomes
Additional Savings

7. Feeding America’s
KM Challenges

8. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Internal Infrastructure vs.
Direct Services
Challenges Unique to Non-Profit
Organizations
People as a Priority
Need for Technical
Expertise & Solutions
Unique Organizational
Structure
Ever-Changing
Environment

9. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Summary Key KM Challenges
Need for Defined Governance
Processes
Limited Ability to Find and
Discover Information
Limited Ability to Find People
Over-Reliance on Personal
Networks
Silos Between and Within the
National Organization and the
Food Bank Network
Need for Improved Offboarding
& Knowledge Transfer
Need for KM Leadership
Conflict Between Investing in
Infrastructure and Funding Direct
Services

10. Resolution Time: 4 business days
Total Person Hours: 11 hours
Current State:
New Mobile Pantry Coordinator
Step 1
A new Mobile Pantry
Coordinator is
tasked with
planning a one-time
event. Her supervisor
remembers hearing
about a similar
initiative but can’t
recall any relevant
documentation.
Step 2
The Coordinator
visits the intranet,
but she doesn’t
know what
functional area
would have the
information she
needs.
After an hour, she
finds a menu that
includes Mobile
Pantry Resources.
Step 3
She spends one
hour sifting through
the 39 resources on
this page but
doesn’t find any
guidance for special
events with mobile
pantries.
Step 4
She poses a
question on
Yammer to see if
anyone else has
done a similar
project before.
She waits until the
end of the next day
to see if she gets a
response.
Step 5
No response is
provided via
Yammer, so she
reaches out to a
national staff
member via email,
describing the
situation, explaining
what she has done
so far, and asking for
advice on how to
proceed.
Step 6
The staff member
takes four hours to
get to the email.
Once he does, he
spends three hours
over the course of
two days looking for
and asking other
Member
Engagement Staff
for ideas, then shifts
and searches
through the intranet.
Step 7
By the end of the
second day, the
staff member is able
to provide some
suggestions and
somewhat relevant
documentation to
the Mobile Pantry
Coordinator.
Step 8
The next day, the
Mobile Pantry
Coordinator begins
planning the project
with some direction
and low confidence
in the solution.

11. Total Resolution Time: 30 Minutes
Recurring Time: 2-Hour Monthly
Commitment from Network Groups on
Content Curation
Target State:
New Mobile Pantry Coordinator
Step 1
A new Mobile Pantry Coordinator
is tasked with planning a one-
time event for the food bank’s
mobile food pantry. She is
excited but doesn’t have the
information at hand.
Step 2
The Coordinator searches in the
enterprise search portal. Within
minutes, she finds a relevant, up-
to-date article describing an
experience that another food
bank had with a similar process,
thanks to a commitment at the
national and network level to
update and curate content.
Step 3
The Coordinator wants to learn
more, so she uses quick links to
contact the Mobile Pantry
Coordinator at the referenced
food bank.
Step 4
The two coordinators have a
virtual conversation about what
went well last time and how to
better improve the process for
the future. The Mobile Pantry
Coordinator has the information
she needs to begin planning the
event.

12. Feeding America’s KM
Strategic Priorities

13. Find & Connect People at the National & Network Levels
A robust people finder will empower Feeding America staff to connect with Subject
Matter Experts across the organization, as well as deepen the relationships between
the national organization and food banks at the network level.
Cultivate Community-Wide Learning
A cultivated learning community at Feeding America will encourage staff to treat
knowledge as a key asset, supporting quicker upskilling and boosting organizational
performance.
Increase Awareness of Information & Resources
Clear definitions of purpose for Feeding America’s tools, processes, and best
practices will enable staff to intuitively, accurately, and efficiently find relevant
content and information, improving staff understanding of which content is stored
in Feeding America’s core content management systems.

14. Target State Initiatives
KM Governance &
Leadership
Embedded Learning Content Strategy Search & Findability Interest & Connection
Community
Building
● Standardize KM roles
and responsibilities
across teams and
departments
● Unify the Feeding
America organization
during the KM
transformation process
Sample Initiative: Design &
Implement KM Governance
Framework
● Integrate new
learnings into existing
platforms, tools, and
technologies
● Maximize effective
knowledge retention
and learning
techniques
Sample Initiative: Identify
High-Value Moments for
Content Capture
● Streamline the
content publishing,
management, and
governance processes
across divisions
Sample Initiative: Develop
System Purpose Statements
& Content Governance Plan
● Formulate a search
strategy for enterprise
search
● Develop an enterprise
taxonomy to pave the
way for an enterprise
search solution that
will integrate with key
systems
Sample Initiative: Design
First Implementable Version
(FIV) of a Taxonomy
● Embed knowledge
transfer opportunities
like Communities of
Interest, Affinity
Groups, Knowledge
Cafes, Lunch and
Learns, Food Bank
Marketplaces, etc..
Sample Initiative:
Community Group
Knowledge Transfer Pilot

15. Roadmap Development
Feeding America’s 18-month KM Roadmap
Considerations for Development
Focus on pilots to prove out value
and provide a framework to scale
Leverage existing technology in
the short term, moving toward
advanced technology in the long
term
Establish KM foundations up front
Ensure there are defined roles and
expectations for stakeholders
involved in key initiatives

16. Getting Started: KM Pilots

17. Toolkit for Success

18. Keys to Success & Lessons Learned
Build KM responsibilities into people’s
roles where appropriate and/or hire FTEs
to fill gaps.
Conduct technical conversations early.
Pilot foundational initiatives with teams
and/or network areas who are interested
and excited to build momentum.
Find KM champions and empower them
as soon as possible.
Take KM on a “roadshow” around the
organization to conduct training and elicit
buy-in.
Frame the business value of KM to align
with a non-profit’s specific vision and
mission.

19. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Any Questions?
Thank you for listening.
We are happy to take any
questions at this time.
Tom Summerfelt
tsummerfelt@gmail.com
www.linkedin.com/in/tom-summerfelt/
Sara Duane
sduane@enterprise-knowledge.com
www.linkedin.com/in/sara-duane/