4. ORGANIZATION BACKGROUND
Mission
• Improve the social, emotional, physical, and educational well being of children by
enriching the knowledge of families, teachers, and caregivers
• Envision a future where all children achieve educational and life success
• United 4 Children considers the four pillars as the foundation of their work.
Organization
• Size of Organization: 36 staff
Service Overview
• 8 service models
• Each has unique goals and outcomes, funding sources, database and requirement s
• UnitedWay funds U4C overall
4
Organization
Background
Problem Definition Methodology Current State Analysis Recommendations
6. 1
• Understand the interrelationships among current IT processes and tools
adopted by the organization
2
• Identify redundancies and duplication of activities
3
• Recommend a software solution that streamlines work processes and
satisfies outcome tracking and reporting requirements of each service
model
6
Organization
Background
Project Objectives Methodology Current State Analysis Recommendations
PROJECT OBJECTIVES
8. U4C Programs – Career Development
Enrollment
Training
Assessment
Send out brochures Track membership info
Request certificate
Record attendance
Record attendance
Track assessment resultsConduct assessment with ERS data system
8
Organization
Background
Problem Definition Methodology Current State Analysis Recommendations
9. Reporting
Financial data / invoice
Progress Update
U4C Programs – Road to Quality
Enrollment
Pre-
Training
Post-
training
Request certificate
Surveys
Record attendance
Record attendance
Selection via partner organizations
Track attendance and progress
Selection done by
Progress Update
Done by ARCHS
Organization
Background
Problem Definition Methodology Current State Analysis Recommendations
10. ANALYSIS – Areas for Improvement
10
Organization
Background
Problem Definition Methodology Current State Analysis Recommendations
Data
Redundancy &
Duplication
Manual IT
Procedure
Operational
Inefficiency
Problem
Statement
Technical
Assistance
Alignment of
business and IT
Process
Integration of
Internal and
External
Application
Improvement
11. ANALYSIS : FUNCTION <-> PROGRAM
11
Organization
Background
Problem Definition Methodology Current State Analysis Recommendations
Functionality Programs
Career
Development
Early Childhood
Learning Center
Social
Emotional Early
Childhood
Healthy
Nutrition
Inclusion
Services
Programs
Achieving
quality
Road to
Quality
Strengthening
Families
Membership management X X X X X X X X
Individual
Organization
Donor Management X X X X X X X X
Grants
report to Donor
Event Management X X X X X X X
registration
Payments
Events schedule/Calendar
Integration with MO Calendar
Survey X X X X X X X
Teaching Curriculum managements X X X X X X X
Course management
Assessments
Advertise/Campains X X X X X X X
Reports X X X X X X X X
Fianance X X X X X X X X
12. RECOMMENDATION – KEY FEATURES
12
Organization
Background
Problem Definition Methodology Current State Analysis Recommendations
14. IMPLEMENTATION OF RECOMMENDATION
14
Organization
Background
Problem Definition Methodology Current State Analysis Recommendations
Software
Platform
POLICIES
PEOPLE
PROCEDURES
PROCESS
• Personnel with basic
technical knowledge
• Assign roles to people.
• Encourage knowledge
sharing
• Create aWorkflow process
that can be easily modified.
• Tasks in workflow assigned
to roles
• Move activities done on
Paper, spreadsheets,Word
to screens in workflow.
• EnforceTool usage.
• Challenge comfort Zones
• Reward transition toTool
• Establish workflow procedures
• Create Procedures by program
• Document program tasks to roles
PLATFORM
16. IMPLEMENTATION OF RECOMMENDATION
16
Organization
Background
Problem Definition Methodology Current State Analysis Recommendations
Vendor
Evaluation
• Out of Box
Functions
• Workflow
Enablement
• Drag / Drop
webpage builder
• Adhoc report
builder
• Data Browser
Proof of
Concept
• Ensure at least 2
programs are
developed
• Get major Pain
points answered
• ChallengeVendor
to bake what you
want
• Test thoroughly
SelfTrials
• Actively engage in
using features such
as form builder
• Create 1 Program
from start to finish
including designing
• Ensure at least 2
people are trained
• Train theTrainer
Tool
Selection
• Select 2 tools with
1st & 2nd preference.
• Give weightage to
extended support,
training and
learning System
17. CONCLUSION
17
Organization
Background
Problem Definition Methodology Current State Analysis Recommendations
RecommendationTools
1.Wild Apricot
Scalability Mobility
2. Apricot by Social Solutions
Process
Oriented
Enterprise
Mindset
Self
Sufficiency
Technology
Investment
Key Differentiators
Guiding Principles
20. Reporting
Track ASQ results
Financial data / invoice
Quarterly
Progress Update
Monthly
U4C Programs – Early Childhood Learning Center
Enrollment
Class for
Children
PDTraining
for Staff
Request certificate
Record attendance
Record attendance
Enroll into ECLC
20
Appendix
21. Reporting
Send consumer and stewardship reports
Monthly and Quarterly
Web-based Portal
U4C Programs – Social Emotional Early Childhood
Confirm dates
Enrollment
Training
Request certificate
Record attendance
Record attendance
Action Plan
Create Classroom Action Plan Track Classroom Action Plan progress
21
Appendix
22. Reporting
U4C Programs – Strengthening Families
Enrollment
Training
Confirm dates
Record attendance
Record attendance
Financial data / invoice
Quarterly
Progress Update
Monthly
Appendix
23. Reporting
U4C Programs – Inclusion Services
Enrollment
Confirm dates Track teacher info
Pre-
Training
Post-
training
Follow-up info with family and children Collect info of children observation
Children Observation
Record attendance
Record attendance
-Child-Specific and General
Classroom TA; Case Follow-up; Outreach
Quarterly
Appendix
24. Reporting
U4C Programs – Programs Achieving Quality
Enrollment
Training
Sign in/follow up info/survey
Record attendance
Record attendance
Confirm dates Track teacher info
Record number of action steps initiated
Data trackAssessment result
Appendix
Editor's Notes
United 4 Children is comprised of St. Louis for Kids and the Child Day Care Association.
St. Louis for Kids grew out of community efforts to address the problems of youth violence and delinquency. Founded originally in 1996 as the Regional Violence Initiative, Inc., the St. Louis for Kids name and mission were adopted in 2000. St. Louis 2004 played a key role in forming St. Louis for Kids after its citizen forums identified strong afterschool programs as critical to addressing the issue of youth violence. St. Louis for Kids was charged with meeting a pressing need for a central afterschool resource to provide information, technical assistance and advocacy.
Child Day Care Association (CDCA) was founded in 1969 as a result of the deep interest of a number of child care center directors in establishing a central organization for child care. At the same time the United Way of St. Louis was interested in assuring that high quality standards were in place in child care centers receiving United Way support.
The United Way agreed to fund the CDCA charge; that it would, within two years, develop a system of performance standards which all United Way child care centers would be required to meet. Thus CDCA became the only social service agency created by the United Way.
Every team members picked United 4 children as their first choice. Very passionate to make U4C successful, everyone worked together as a team and contributed over and beyond their initial level of knowledge. Lot of research and lot of learning went into the execution of this project.
Team Leader Details : ( Can be contacted for any team member details )
Ajay Kothuri
akothuri@wustl.edu
(314) 359-9123
Professional MBA.
Details of any of the team members can be obtained by contacting the team leader, students services coordinator (Jan Snow) or Taylor Community Consulting Services Coordinators.
This is the Agenda for the presentation.
Once we understand the Organization and its background, we will review the project objectives and how we came up with those.
The methodology we used for the project and execution of the methodology.
United 4 Children improves the social, emotional, physical, and educational well being of our children by enriching the knowledge of families, teachers, and caregivers.
United 4 Children considers these four pillars as the foundation of our work as we meet people where they are and guide them to gain skills in the following areas.
1. Social - ( Confidence | Conflict Resolution | Effective Communication | Self-Worth | Relationship )
2. Emotional - ( Self-Regulation | Impulse Control | Empathy | Resiliency | Stress Management )
3. Physical - ( Health | Nutrition | Large muscle movement | Small muscle movement )
4. Educational - (Developmental milestones | Kindergarten Readiness | School Age Success )
During the initial kickoff meeting, Program director (Elisa Zieg) gave us an overview of the United 4 Children and the programs that they currently run. A request for an IT Assessment was made to our team. It was not very clear what would be really a good value to “IT Assessment”. So, we did not establish any specific objectives at that time. But instead, we recommended that we do a deep dive of the current state and do or problem formulation ourselves.
We prepared the problem statement after the current state analysis was completed.
These objectives were outlined from our current state analysis problem formulation. After we defined these objectives, we reviewed these with Elisa.
Fortunately, she was 100% in agreement with these.
There was a transition time when we went on a build vs buy decision making path and started writing requirements for building a solution but before our mid term review, we did a comprehensive plan and a roadmap on how to proceed forward. At that time, we outlined the project charter. This helped us better understand United 4 Children’s constraints. Identifying the constraints helped us narrow our focus and scope to a more clearer off-the-shelf solution rather than building a new system.
Issues with collaboration and time management began surfacing. We, as a team, wanted to make this a success and so had a very constructive discussion on how to proceed forward.
We decided to split the team into two groups with Ajay leading one and Kartik leading the other. Each of the teams will split the programs for assessing the current state.
Ajay and Kartik will conduct evaluations and 3rd party communications. This really helped us achieve lot more than what we originally anticipated and completed our project before time.
Unless a solid current state with pictorial representation exists, we unanimously decided it would be hard to understand all the issues in place. So, a good current state analysis was required.
Delving into the details of the current state, problem areas can easily be identified and an integrated solution towards future state can be recommended.
This is the current state of one of the Key programs. This exercise was done for all the programs. However, in the interest of time only two programs that pique your interest were shown. Rest are in the appendix for your kind perusal.
The idea here is to outline one of the problem areas. As it is clearly visible, there are a number of data gathering points which are totally dislocated from their primary information gathering database.
These data gathering through Excel, Word and Paper needs to be re-keyed into the software tool. At times, there is no provision to do this and so many times, this results in secondary storage and unstructured storage that is difficult to gather statistics or even report on.
This is a view of the second program which outlines atleast three data gathering points that are important to assess the health of this program.
Surveys are sent out using many different tools and often these are related to the same master data. But it is hard to compile these together unless a manual effort is conducted.
As we analyzed the current state, several problem areas came to light. Keys ones are outlined above but many of the others are provided below for reference.
Manually building reports
Statistics through eyeballing
Technically Challenged
Understanding of the capabilities of the primary tool
Alignment of business processes to IT application processes
Integration between internal and external applications
Once the focus was shifted by our team from trying to come up with a build solution to a buy solution, we decided to identify the out-of-box functions that are specifically used by U4C.
Latest BPM (Business Process Management) tools provide a number of functions, having the most number of them is not necessarily going to help United 4 Children.
Identifying the right BPM functions that are relevant to United 4 Children is necessary to evaluate the tools so the right tool can be recommended.
Shown above is the summary of the out-of-box functions that are relevant to United 4 children. It also shows the reason why these are the ones we consider relevant. Because these are being used by the current programs which are likely to be in the line of business of the future programs.
As part of the future state analysis, a recommendation will be proposed.
Software has evolved and many businesses are molding themselves to fit to the available Information technology tools rather than customizing available tools to their business.
The key reason is because the software tools have been baking business processes and the best practices on conducting those business processes into the tools.
These tools are commonly known as “Business Process Management” (BPM) tools.
Non-profit organizations are no strangers to these software vendors. In fact, there is ample choice for these tools that we decided to identify what United 4 children should look for when they do their vendor evaluations.
Shown above are the key features that the software platform should provide for United 4 children to mitigate or eliminate their problem areas.
An elaboration of each of these terms and their benefits will be provided in the Executive Summary document that is a deliverable to United 4 children.
During the 6 weeks that TCCP Program is active, an evaluation of FOUR BPM tools were conducted. NeonCRM is curently being used in-house. Apricot by Social Solutions was a recommendation from one of United 4 Children’s funding organizations and the other two tools (Wild apricot and Member Clicks) are recommendations from Independent popular non-profit organization websites which have considerable market share.
The evaluation method of each of these tools has been shown above.
Our team is very confident of this assessment based on the evaluation method or documentation but it is possible that the demonstrator or unclear documentation could have led us to believe the wrong way.
Also, the evaluation took into great consideration the ease of use of a feature as well rather than the availability of the feature. Due to United 4 children’s low technical staff, in order for them to achieve self-sufficiency, this was an important ingredient of the software platform.
The software Platform is only going to give the foundation. But the important layers (Walls, electrical, plumbing, etc) has to be embedded into the software platform for United 4 children to be successful.
There is a good indication of a culture change that is required of United 4 Children. This will involved re-organizing the people to well defined roles. Having procedures and policies that will ensure strict enforcement of these roles. Penalties for refusing to step outside the comfort zones and rewards for extensive use of the software platform features should be part of this transformation.
A good process should be laid out and people, roles, policies and procedures should be in total alignment to the process. The process can also be induced into the software platform using a workflow model.
Next Steps for United 4 Children
Now that there is a good understanding of what is required, United 4 Children should attempt to make the use of information in identifying the right software platform.
At the end, TCCP team has made a recommendation but 100% complete satisfaction that it is the right choice would happen only when a structured process of selecting the tool is adhered.
A roadmap of the activities involved in tool selection has been outlined above.
Initial Vendor evaluations of the tools with scoring sheets of the required features should be developed. These should be scored by at least 5 of the stakeholders belonging to different departments of the organization.
Along with features, financial and regulatory aspects should be considered in making the final decision.
Once the top two or three vendors are selected, a small proof of concept (or a mini prototype) should be developed for U4C staff to play. Then at least a 3 month trial period of the tool is recommended.
The trial period should be utilized to do all the activities like this was on a live system.
This will help in a better tool selection.
RECOMMENDED TOOL
Preference 1 – Wild Apricot (Highly automated and better support)
Preference 2 – Apricot by Social Solutions (loses on financial aspects and features such as templates, email communication, mobile access)
KEY DIFFERENTIATORS
Scalability: when new programs are added then the software should be easy to expand. As U4C gets bigger, the tools should accommodate.
Mobility: Being able to access anywhere reduced duplication in turn resulting in labor savings.
Process Oriented: Workflow helps operational efficiency
GUIDING PRINCIPLES
Enterprise in Mind – Eliminating Silo’s in the organization helps build
Self Sufficiency – The software platform should be easy enough for even the low technical expertise people to operate or design.
Invest in Technology – Essential for today’s business. It takes money to make money.
