Hylaine, Fiserv, MagMutual volunteers supported Atlanta nonprofit in improving business processes, creating a 20% increase in operating efficiencies
Sponsored by Hylaine
Bearings Bike Works is a Southwest Atlanta nonprofit that operates four unique youth development programs that help students ages 6-18 develop hard skills, soft skills, and character strengths that can make a difference in future career success. Although the prospect of earning a bike is what draws kids to the program, the excitement of learning new skills and being a part of a community keeps them returning, week after week. Bearings’ mission is to put the right tools in the hands of youth to help develop and advance the necessary skills to transition into adulthood and the workforce, ultimately creating productive lives.
Following the post-pandemic changes, Bearings reached out to Apparo for assistance reorganizing and identifying ways to improve business processes and formally document them to run their organization more efficiently. Sponsored by Hylaine, Apparo matched Bearings Bike Works with skilled volunteers including those from Hylaine, Fiserv, and MagMutual. Through this project, the volunteer team conducted a current state assessment and documented processes in the areas of finance, HR, programs, retail mechanics, and development to help identify which areas could benefit from business process improvements.
One year later, the Apparo team met with Bearings Co-Founder, Becky O’Mara to see if they had achieved the anticipated impacts from project recommendations. When the project was originally near its end, Bearings had just hired a new Business Operations Manager, who quickly began implementing recommendations. Becky shared that since implementing, the most prominent areas they have experienced improvement in have been in finance and HR processes. She reflects on the experience,
“Coming out of the pandemic was a great time for us to step back and have experts come in with an outside perspective of where we could improve and streamline. It was great timing for us and allowed us to step into this season of growth. We cleaned up a lot of our internal processes, which empowered our team to do more. By going through the process together, we could delegate recommendations and implement automation where it made the most sense. Revealing and documenting our pain points, some we knew about and others we couldn’t see before this work with Apparo, benefited our organization and was a great exercise. We were too close to the work so having an outside look into our processes allowed us to holistically capture and document what we do. Now our team has clear processes and can get through the work day more efficiently.”
Last year, the team estimated an anticipated 20% increase in operating efficiencies. Today, Bearings feels they met that expectation and now that their back-office processes are in order, the team has more time and capacity to focus on marketing and other efforts that allow them to share and fulfill their mission. Becky shares, “Since this project with Apparo, we are as efficient as we have ever been, especially in our retail and sales processes. The most exciting piece of this is that now we have our processes cleaned up, we can direct our time and energy toward growth. We can focus on the kids and families we serve and we can proudly equip our team to do the same.”
Since the project wrapped up, Bearings has been able to bring on two additional full-time staff members. They also report serving an increased number of students annually, “We are certainly in a season of growth, serving upwards of 300+ kids“, Becky shared. Becky comments on the importance of having streamlined processes in their ability to serve the community, “We always want to be able to serve our community in the best way possible. As a nonprofit, we have to be able to do this as efficiently as possible. Being able to serve so many kids in such a short time requires efficiency. I truly believe we offer a great program for our community and have a great team behind the mission. It is a privilege to be able to create these efficiencies for our team and boost the impact for our community.”
