Skilled volunteers from Jabian Consulting assisted Carolina Youth Coalition by creating a technology roadmap to streamline processes, allowing more time to focus on their mission.
Carolina Youth Coalition (CYC) is a college-access, non-profit organization dedicated to nurturing and propelling high-achieving, under-resourced students to and through college. CYC offers a comprehensive range of free, best-in-class college and academic preparation, career exploration, and mentorship for 9th-12th graders, as well as holistic, individualized college success support for college students. CYC helps students (Fellows) identify, gain admission to, successfully navigate higher education, and graduate from a best-fit college with as little debt as possible. Alumni of our programs will be ready to enter the workforce and their communities as confident, innovative, and empathic leaders.
CYC came to Apparo for assistance optimizing their processes in data collection/reporting, onboarding new students, volunteers and staff, as well as financial reporting. Many important processes were not written down and only known by one person, creating a key person risk. The team was using manual techniques for many tasks creating time-consuming searches for information and difficulty creating accurate reports.
Apparo paired CYC with a team of skilled volunteers from Jabain Consulting. During their Community Impact Project, they assessed CYC’s current state and assisted with creating detailed and organized written processes. They also recommended technology tools that could assist with streamlining their processes.
Nonprofit improves operational efficiency with business processes
Prior to their project with Apparo, CYC was using different spreadsheets to manage data. With the recommendations from Jabian, CYC will begin to use a data dashboard to hold all their data. This will save time searching for information, as well as keep data clean and accurate. Having a centralized place to pull data from makes reporting much easier as well.
During their recruitment period, CYC staff are busy onboarding hundreds of students and their families, as well as volunteers. The use of manual processes created a difficult and occasionally frustrating experience for both staff and clients/volunteers. By streamlining processes with better tracking and data management and reducing manual data entry, the application and placement process will be much smoother. CYC anticipates saving 15-20 hours a week for onboarding.
By having more accurate reporting and cleaner data, monthly financial tasks will also take less time. CYC anticipates closing the months financial books will take 50% less time than before thanks to the new processes and technology Jabian has recommended.
Tara Patterson Hammons, who had only been in her role as Deputy Director for a few weeks when this project started, found the process extremely valuable. “The thoroughness with which the Jabian team helped us to painstakingly articulate every step of our financial reporting, data management, and Fellow and Volunteer recruitment/onboarding processes saved me what would have otherwise taken at least a year to fully understand. I can’t thank them enough.”
Business processes help grow nonprofit reach and services
Since creating more efficient business processes, CYC has freed up more time growing their reach and expanding their services. Aaron Randolph, Co-Founder and Executive Director of CYC, states “We have a growth goal of 500 fellows by 2028 and this will play a huge part of that. This year we brought in 150 new fellows, having these processes in place makes sure this large group will have a great experience.” Since fellows (clients) stay will CYC for up to 8 years, “solving any issues and codifying processes is necessary so we stabilize the organization and can grow along with the long-term impact on the student.”
Spending less time onboarding and creating reports, staff members can now spend more time on fundraising, marketing and programming. As JaDora Ross, Director of Culture and Community Engagement at CYC states, “We are grateful for the care that the Jabian team brought to the table. It’s helpful when processes live in our brain and you finally see it on paper and find areas of opportunity.”
Aaron Randolph sees that the business process roadmap will help with funding as well. He states, “we now have a lot of different deliverables we can share with our stakeholders.” These documents not only show the dedication the staff has to the organization but highlights how investing in a nonprofit’s growth directly impacts the community.
Maria Diaz, Data and Grants Management Director, sums up their experience “every time we work with an Apparo partner they are always really great, and then a new project comes along and it’s even better than what we expected.”
