Coca-Cola Consolidated and Nutanix skilled volunteer team completed a necessary process assessment with Books with Color to ensure the organization can remain operational and scale their mission
Sponsored by Coca-Cola Consolidated
Books of Color—a Diversity Drive Author’s Alliance, is a community of creatives driven to promote diversity and equality via access to inclusive reading materials in the home and classroom, so children everywhere feel represented in the books they read. They believe children of all colors should grow up with a wide array of books featuring children of all colors. Books with Color raises funds to purchase books from diverse and bilingual authors to undo the solvable racial and social disparity.
Books with Color was headed into their first full year of school programming and identified areas in which manual processes could no longer support their size and continued growth. The organization facilitates connections between classrooms and independent, diversity-driven authors that allow authors to present live readings of their books to children which opens doors to important, age-appropriate conversations about race and representation in books and real life. Many children feel seen and heard in classroom stories for the first time. The organization believes that this inclusivity results in children having a more positive outlook on reading and improves their overall relationship with books. Their scheduling process for live author readings required multiple steps, many of which were manual, creating inefficiencies and brand reputation risks.
Through this Community Impact Project sponsored by Coca-Cola Consolidated, Apparo matched Books with Color with a skilled volunteer team who provided a thorough business process assessment of the organization’s programming and technology. The evaluation supported Books with Color by creating a guide that included opportunities to improve both internal business and technology processes and provide a scalable approach as the program is expanded. The project also involved support with the initial implementation of desired process automation.
Realizing the Importance of Efficient Business Processes
When reflecting on the anticipated impact of their work through this project, Kristi Cruise, President of Books with Color shares “Automation was necessary for our organization. Without this partnership with Apparo and the systems we plan to implement, we wouldn‘t have an operational nonprofit.” Before this project, the Books with Color team was operating with fully manual processes and realized that they could not scale under these conditions. As the Books with Color team is comprised of volunteers, they did not have extra time to spare on time-consuming processes and considered hiring a staff person to handle manual scheduling processes.
Kristi shares, “Technology will allow robust growth; the sky is the limit. Our mission has the potential to put a dent in the educational universe and I hope that we do.” With a new understanding of their needs for automation and a look into options that are available for implementation, not only are costs reduced through eliminating a scheduling position, but the risk of harming their brand reputation by requiring multi-step and multi-platform processes is eliminated. Teachers and independent authors similarly do not have extra time to spend being redirected to multiple pages or platforms to schedule or provide feedback on a live reading. With automation, the Books with Color team can confidently approach more teachers, more authors, and therefore reach more students by greatly reducing administrative work. In addition to this increased outreach to their constituents, with a data-driven strategy, the organization can better approach funders. When operating manually, Books with Color had a list of authors waiting to be connected and waiting on feedback from prior readings. They now feel “ahead of the game” and anticipate quickly connecting with the list of authors who have been waiting to reach classrooms. The organization feels that their mission is highly scalable with the right processes in place, and hopes to eventually reach thousands of classrooms.
Volunteers that Make a Difference
While reflecting on the experience of working with Apparo and the skilled volunteers who supported this work, Kristi shares, “The extra willingness of the volunteers sums up the whole attitude of the volunteer team. You could tell that they really cared, were all in on our mission, and were willing to lend their expertise, even beyond the scope of the project. The dedication of the volunteers was a refreshing, wonderful surprise.”
Crystel Patterson, Books with Color Author’s Alliance author adds, “It was a pleasure working with the volunteer team from Coca-Cola Consolidated on the Business Process Assessment for Books with Color. Their thorough analysis and insightful recommendations have paved the way for a smoother, more effective process of connecting teachers with authors. As an author within the Books with Color Author’s Alliance, I am excited to see these new procedures in action. I believe they will significantly enhance the experiences and outcomes for authors, teachers, and students alike.”
Echoing a similar sentiment, Books with Color CEO, Lawerence Gordon shares, “Anything we can do to help all children and especially children of color form a deeper, more powerful relationship with books is what we are all about. This project is the perfect example of what can be accomplished when we work together.”
Volunteers had a mutually beneficial experience, sharing:
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- “Brenna (Apparo) was great to work with. She did a phenomenal job managing this project. We had some really powerful meetings with both Kristi and Crystel on calls. Meeting Lawrence, the CEO, was great too – he has a powerful vision and it was great to hear his story.” –Charles Rogers, Coca-Cola Consolidated
- “I enjoyed working with everyone in this project. This was my first time doing something like this, it was a very good experience, and I am already looking forward to the next time I can be involved again.” –Alex Jeffers, Coca-Cola Consolidated
- “This was my first time working with a nonprofit organization and I felt like I didn’t have a lot of depth in knowledge around how they operate but I learned so much about what is needed, where there is room for improvement, and how we can support.” –Jae Han, Coca-Cola Consolidated
- “Every time we met I was so happy to hear about the missions of Apparo and Books with Color. I’m always looking forward to the next project with Apparo. You can always see the excitement with the nonprofit and volunteer teams. We need to do this more often.” –Sanket Shah, Coca-Cola Consolidated
