Most nonprofits and churches struggle with resource constraints and rely heavily on volunteer help or unpaid time, often called “sweat equity.” This makes efficiency even more critical, as many try to do more with less.
One of the most significant ways to gain efficiency is to identify the bottlenecks in your operations and communications processes. Where does most of the idle or waiting time happen? Can it be reduced? Most organizations can identify significant and obvious bottlenecks without delving into time-consuming process mapping by surveying staff and essential volunteers. Knowing where the roadblocks are is the first step to removing them.