Vancouver Foundation

Unified, resilient, and adaptive—one community foundation’s roadmap to operational excellence

Following a period of rapid growth and key team changes, the Vancouver Foundation (VF) faced significant challenges resulting from siloed operations and accumulated organizational debt, limiting its capacity to pursue its strategic goals effectively.

73

targeted workshops across six departments

21

process and data maps illustrating crossfunctional interactions

20

change management sessions to foster alignment

6

operational excellence initiatives lifted to the org-wide strategic roadmap

With a new Director of Information Technology on board, VF began a search for a consulting partner to support the Foundation in better understanding the organization via business processes and data maps. After exploring several partners, VF landed on Grantbook due to our deep familiarity with the workflows and organizational structures unique to grantmakers. Initial work together quickly revealed more systemic issues and a need to define Project Align, a cross-department effort to articulate and prioritize the operational work necessary to become a more resilient and adaptable organization.

GRANTBOOK SERVICES

Grants Management Ops Assessment
Change Readiness
Visioning & Recommendations
Organizational Operational Plan

A flow chart showing process work for the Vancouver Foundation

Challenge

When Grantbook began work with VF, organizational silos were causing a lack of shared understanding of how to communicate, coordinate and collaborate effectively. This confusion was leaving the passionate, values-driven team frustrated. Furthermore, misalignment between core philanthropic teams, insufficient knowledge management, and low levels of data quality & data literacy prevented the foundation from communicating a unified narrative of impact.

Like many rapidly expanding organizations, VF recognized they had been making do with the same mindset, structures, and data practices that had worked so well in early years. Project Align would be the holistic effort to thoughtfully adapt to its new size and the changing philanthropy landscape.

Journey

Over twelve months, Grantbook worked with six operational teams—IT, People & Culture, Finance, Grants & Community Initiatives (GCI), Donor Services (DS), & Office of the President—assessing the interconnected nature of the operational challenges and providing a much-needed overarching perspective.

To develop the final set of recommendations and priorities, the Grantbook team navigated multiple workstreams including corporate services coaching, master data mapping, defining the customer journey, and current to future state business process mapping.

Destination

Unwavering in its commitment to serving its communities, VF recognized the need to invest in the operational excellence required to keep pace with the ever-evolving landscape of philanthropy.

By partnering with Grantbook, VF is breaking down silos, has arrived at a shared understanding of its key operational challenges, and has prioritized them into a roadmap for transformation.

Equipped with a mindset of continuous improvement VF is well-positioned to execute against this cross-department roadmap, to achieve six objectives that include strengthening strategic execution, improving data maturity, and investing in technical infrastructure.

"The team from Grantbook was instrumental in supporting Vancouver Foundation through this journey. Grantbook’s knowledge of the philanthropic sector and depth of expertise provided keen insights and clarity around our processes, technology, data, and ways of working. I feel well supported in the findings, recommendations and tools provided which are being incorporated into our strategy going forward. This work with Grantbook is critical in addressing our organizational debt and improving cross-department collaboration. "

— Chris Little, VP Corporate Services at Vancouver Foundation