While those things have always been a part of who we are as a firm, the ways they manifest have changed over time and it was neat to see those values in action at our retreat.<\/p>\n
We still only hire people who have worked full-time in nonprofits and we do this because it\u2019s a practice that has never failed to bring us people who care enough about the sector to make it their career. What\u2019s exciting and new (to me at least) is that our work has expanded a great deal in the last few years, taking us beyond fundraising and into more direct work with program teams. While we all know and love fundraising, it\u2019s energizing to everyone, I think, to be able to expand our work to areas so directly tied to mission delivery. In addition, we\u2019ve leveraged the two decades of experience to offer more than just systems work: we now embed change management and strategic technology planning into all our projects. This leads to more effective organizational transformation for our clients and that is deeply satisfying.<\/p>\n
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The idea of resilience came up a lot this year, and we discussed what it means to not give up when things get tough. We carry out multi-year implementations of mission-critical systems for organizations with tight budgets and tighter schedules. We help people to change the way that they work in order to get more done. Anyone who\u2019s been through a large CRM implementation knows that it can be a long and bumpy road, and there are times when everyone involved gets a bit sick of each other. But as we reviewed the last year \u2013 formally in our meetings and informally over dinners and drinks \u2013 what I heard over and over were references to the way the consultants supported each other and our clients when everyone was beyond tired. As a company, we don\u2019t just assume that will happen on its own \u2013 we had a session in the retreat where we talked in depth about cultivating that strength both individually and as a team. Our managers make it a point to see that those aspects of professional development continue throughout the year.<\/p>\n
In my earlier days at Heller, we also had a tight-knit crew. We also supported each other and we worked hard and delivered quality work. But we did it in a more stereotypically start-up way. A lot of things were accomplished in very by-the-seat-of-your-pants<\/span> organic ways. It was fun\u2026most of the time. But what impresses me now is how we\u2019ve managed to make our core values more than just a list of personal traits we hope everyone has. We have a whole committee system through which a whole range of internal capacity-building initiatives are identified, prioritized and implemented through the year. Our service managers analyze project management data to find opportunities to add efficiencies or improve our client experience; those become initiatives and teams are assigned \u2013 and given time \u2013 to develop them. Solutions get vetted, tested, refined, documented and rolled out to the wider team through weekly knowledge-sharing meetings, which are recorded and saved in an internal resource library. This is dedication at a whole other level. And I love it.<\/p>\n So, it\u2019s great to be back. And, based on what I saw, I think it\u2019s going to be great year.<\/p>\n