Food For The Poor

Comprehensive Assessment, Vision, and Roadmap for Digital Transformation

Food For The Poor is an interdenominational Christian ministry serving the poor in primarily 17 countries throughout the Caribbean and Latin America. The organization has fed millions of people and provided more than 15.7 billion dollars in aid.

Highlights:

Food For The Poor (FFTP) wanted to improve their use of technology for better data management, cross-functional collaboration, and operational efficiencies to enhance their fundraising, marketing, and operations.
Heller Consulting worked with FFTP to assess their organizational challenges and technology systems, develop a vision for the future state of their technology, and create a clear action plan to reach their goals.
Through their work with Heller Consulting, FFTP now has a clear technology vision, a roadmap for how to move forward, and organizational buy-in for digital transformation.

Challenge: Better use of technology for fundraising, marketing, and operations

FFTP’s ecosystem of technology systems was not well-connected. As a result, data coming into the organization through various systems and processes did not provide a full picture of the organization’s data – making it difficult to create complete and accurate reports and work together across departments to use data in an efficient and effective way. The organization’s technology team spent much of their time and energy “fixing” the data coming into their systems. They needed to assess their operations and technology systems and find a better way forward.

Solution: Comprehensive assessment, technology vision, and roadmap for digital transformation

Food For The Poor engaged with Heller Consulting on a comprehensive project aimed at assessing and improving the organization’s technology systems to enhance fundraising, marketing, and operations. The Heller Consulting solution included:

Strategic discovery – The Heller team worked with FFTP leadership and stakeholders in six departments to understand organization-wide challenges, identify areas of greatest opportunity, and build consensus on how to move forward. In the discovery process, the Heller team:
- Assessed how FFTP was operating and interoperating with their systems
- Reviewed where data was being housed and how it flowed between systems and departments
- Identified pain points impacting FFTP’s goals and departments’ abilities to perform efficiently and effectively
- Pinpointed needs for operational optimization and areas for potential improvement
Development of technology vision – Using findings from the discovery process, the Heller team helped FFTP develop a clear technology vision that will help them address their challenges and reach their goals. The team also outlined what the organization will need to do to bridge gaps between FFTP’s current state and the ideal future state.
Action plan – The Heller team created a comprehensive action plan that addresses people, process, and technology considerations – detailing a clear path for technology adoption and change management. This plan includes:
- Design of a more modern data model
- An audit of current systems and a plan to ensure that all functionality required is taken into consideration in a new technology ecosystem
- A plan for a new core suite of technologies, including a customer relationship management (CRM) platform, marketing automation tool, and digital fundraising tool
- A phased approach for technology adoption that includes system configuration, data migration, user testing and training, and system launch – with change management incorporated throughout

Result: A technology vision, roadmap, and organizational buy-in for digital transformation

With a well-defined technology vision and a clear roadmap, FFTP now has organizational buy-in and a path forward for digital transformation. The organization has begun the first steps in moving toward technological enhancements and improved fundraising, marketing, and operations.