Guidance from Medical Benevolence Foundation (MBF) indicated that their number one priority was their relationship with their donors. Key to this relationship is correctly handling donations. Our number one goal at MBF was to improve the quality in which donations and resulting donor communications were managed.
At first glance the donation processing task appeared to be fairly simple and straightforward. After spending time with staff it was quickly revealed to be a much more complex task with numerous variations on types of donor input and multiple different “correct” ways for the MBF staff to respond. In the simplest case (if no problems were encountered) the process required 53 separate steps.
We identified multiple problem areas:
- Heavy reliance on a very small number of employees holding key knowledge about the 53 steps. If someone is out sick, vacation or quits then remaining staff is only able to fulfill a portion of the process.
- Incorrect responses. If someone holding key knowledge is unavailable or if the staff is feeling rushed they may not input the most correct response. These would have the fastest negative impact upon MBF’s donors.
- Complexity of the steps themselves. By the nature of a non-profit (and many for profits) you generally have fewer staff than you really need. Complexity and time constraints cause variation in the employee’s proper implementation of all 53 steps.
We delivered multiple parts for an overall solution:
- Documentation of the donation handling process. This documentation was representative of the most senior level answers to questions. This greatly reduced the “wait” time associated with donation management. In addition it served as a training manual for a new donor clerk.
- Error Trapping and Correction. Using guidance from senior staff we were able to determine many of the possible right responses as well as the most common incorrect responses. We created software that greatly reduced the level of incorrect responses.
- Process Simplification. In analyzing the 53 step process we were able to determine a number of steps that could be replaced with automation (software). These were steps whose “answer” was always the same, or easily calculated, but required a person to manually perform.
Conclusion: Employees were given greater power in that they could perform their job with less effort and greater accuracy. This resulted in happier donors and a lowered attrition rate (loss of customers).
