Crafting your digital strategy: A blueprint for YMCAs and nonprofits

Once your team is prepared to start the journey of digital transformation, it’s time to examine your operations and processes. Technology leaders, particularly those within community-focused organizations like nonprofits and YMCAs, face distinctive challenges in adapting their business processes.

Legacy systems often breed entrenched processes and makeshift workarounds. However, with the emergence of new digital tools, there's an opportunity to reimagine and enhance these processes to better align with your organization's mission.

For your investment to be impactful, you’ll need to examine your business workflows critically and be prepared to adjust and adapt to the possibilities enabled by new technology. Achieving a balance between operational efficiency and responsiveness to stakeholders' needs while remaining true to the core mission is a delicate task, yet attainable with the right approach.

The necessity for change within your workflows

Understanding that change is inevitable, the first step lies in scrutinizing and rethinking your current operations and processes. Oftentimes, routines are established around legacy systems, leading to outdated methods that persist simply because “that’s how it’s always been done.” Breaking free from this cycle requires a fresh perspective and to ask whether what made sense yesterday continues to make sense today.

As you’ll hear echoing in the halls of Traction Rec and our clients, “Just because it made sense, doesn’t mean that it makes sense.”

Structuring for transformation

The transformation process begins with a deep understanding of your organization's structure, which involves identifying various business units. This can include program staff in areas such as child care, camp, fitness, to roles in member services, marketing, accounting, fundraising, and administrative support. These departments are the gears that keep your organization moving forward daily. Understanding their unique needs, challenges, and priorities will help you develop a technology vision that supports and enhances their operations.

Don't forget about your community members! Aside from understanding your organization's structure, it’s critical to gather feedback from all members of your community (not just your staff). This can include annual members, volunteers, community partners, and even program participants. Each of these groups has a unique perspective and experience with your organization's processes and operations, which can provide valuable insights into areas that may need improvement or revision.

Functional mapping

‍With departmental structures identified, the next step is to identify the key business functions that each of them owns and manages. It can be helpful to utilize tools like mind-mapping software (e.g., MindNode or LucidChart) to visualize these functions and their interrelationships within your organization.

This exercise will provide a better understanding of your association's operational efficiency, potential areas for improvement, and any redundancies that may exist across departments. It will also help identify which functions are critical to supporting your mission and should be prioritized in the transformation process.

Streamlining processes

After you’ve identified those critical business functions, you can then document the step-by-step process that your organization takes to complete the function in its current state. Focusing on the actions, roles, and task owners, you can examine how your current technology plays a role as well as how many staff it takes to complete the process.

This exercise is also valuable for identifying any existing gaps or bottlenecks in your current processes that might be impeding productivity, and helps pinpoint areas where technology could provide significant enhancements.

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Capturing what you need (aka, business requirements)

By mapping current processes and starting to explore necessary evolutions for an ideal future state, we can identify key business requirements for a technology implementation plan. This strategy ensures you get the best value in your digital transformation journey, and these business requirements will be the base for picking and rolling out digital tools that match your organization's specific needs and goals.

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Preparing for success

A strategic technology vision extends far beyond simply adopting new tools; it involves reimagining and realigning your organization's core processes to benefit both your staff and the community members you serve.

By gaining a thorough understanding of your organization's structure, functions, and processes, you're laying the groundwork for success. These insights will serve as a comprehensive guide, steering both internal change management and collaboration with technology partners.

What may appear as an overwhelming challenge at first will become a doable and  achievable goal. You've got this!

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This article is part of our in-depth series on the pillars of successful digital transformation: people, processes, and technology. Keep reading, How to create a strategic technology vision for your nonprofit with a team-based approach and Maximizing impact: A technology roadmap for your YMCA's success.