Hope Haven reached out to Apparo for support in increasing their efficiency and security.
Hope Haven provides life skills for chemically dependent adults and families through a supportive residential environment, setting them up for independence going forward. Hope Haven leadership came to Apparo for help assessing their current technology and for recommendations to optimize its use.
Apparo matched Hope Haven to a volunteer Yash Sharma, Senior Scrum Master and Agile Coach, formerly of Hylaine, to review their technological infrastructure, assess how to improve the technology in place and make recommendations for improvements. His recommendations focused on improved technology infrastructure, policy enhancements and training. See PDF of Project Snapshot.
Following the conclusion of this project, we checked in with Rohan Gibbs (Vice President of Operations) and Denise Sawyer (Board of Directors) to learn about the anticipated impact of implementing these recommendations. They shared that they anticipate operational efficiencies that will save 400+ hours of staff time annually, in addition to many other benefits including reduced risk, increased revenue, increased employee job satisfaction and improved client service. They also share that having this plan in place will allow them to plan proactively for future technology expenditures, which will help approve their ability to fulfill their mission.
Moving to the cloud will save considerable time, improve workplace life and mitigate risk.
Rohan explains, “Better tools will increase staff efficiency and job satisfaction.” Benefits of migration:
- Ease of access to information
- Improved communication and sharing of information
- Ease of document sharing through SharePoint and elimination of version control issues
- Minimized email back-and-forth, especially as it related to people coming and going from campus
- Elimination of risk and $1,000+ of annual expense generated by on-site server
Denise adds that the right training will help ensure anticipated efficiency and adherence to privacy policies, as “people sometimes use tools in the wrong way and don’t even realize it.”
Adding a touch screen for visitor check will bolster Hope Haven operational efficiencies and fundraising revenue.
Touch screens will help employees save time as manual data entry is eliminated and will also allow Hope Haven to build relationships with visitors, increasing the opportunity to convert them into donors. As Rohan explains, “Today, we are not capturing email addresses in an automated fashion, missing the opportunity to communicate with many of our visitors. Increasing individual donations is one of our big areas of focus, especially our volunteers. The screens will help ensure that we can capture email addresses, which has the potential to increase our revenue because we’ll be able to build relationships with them, provide them with updates and ask them to donate.”
Denise adds that this would allow them to reach people beyond their visitors. “We could reach out to corporations and let them know how many of their employees volunteered and for how long, which could drive more corporation contributions,” she explains.
New internet service will drive improved operational efficiencies, client experience and potentially decreased expense.
Rohan explains the importance of improved internet speed and reliability, especially during the pandemic, “Today, we are video conferencing a lot, including our residents during their own work and having appointments with our staff. We suffer from dropped calls and bad connection quality. With our new service, we will be able to improve reliability of our connection and know we can work from the cloud with confidence.”
Denise adds, “If a resident needs to have a court appearance and are given the option to do it by video conference, which is the growing trend, they would not need one of our associates take them and wait there with them or go back and pick them up. That will save our staff and our clients significant time.”
Renegotiating their contract may also drive decreased expenses and potentially also improve client experience by bundling in long-distance calls.
Transition to cloud-based electronic records will generate more operating efficiencies and increased revenue opportunities:
- Ease the billing process workflow
- Allow Hope Haven to bill for items they currently cannot and increase accuracy of billing overall
- Improve grant and other fundraising results due to better outcomes data
These operational efficiencies are anticipated to free 400+ hours of time a year, valued at $6,000+, which will drive improved service to their clients and open the door to organizational growth.
As employees have more bandwidth, there is the possibility of adding more residents, increasing time dedicated to counseling and/or offering new services without having to increase staff. As Rohan explains, “Better use of our time means better service to our clients, helping them move towards successful, independent lives.”
As we gathered to wrap up the project, members of the team shared their appreciation for each other and Apparo.
Yash Sharma – “Hope Haven provides the essential support needed by chemically dependent adults and families to rebuild their lives and achieve independence. Working on this project has shown me the value of humility. I am truly grateful to Hope Haven and Apparo for giving me this opportunity.”
Rohan Gibbs – “Working with Apparo and Yash was so easy and worthwhile. Yash made me comfortable in our interview and was never condescending even though our technology is way behind the times. His assessment was in depth and got to the heart of our needs in a very concise manner. We will be using it extensively to bring our agency forward technologically. Overall it was a very pleasant and valuable experience for me and our agency.”
