HOW WE'RE MAKING A DIFFERENCE
We help organizations that are vital to the health of our communities and economy to develop and sustain the strength and focus to improve their performance. Some examples include:
How we're helping our clients make a difference in…
Public Health and Health Care
Expanding access to quality heath care
Client: Regional Health Network
For more than ten years, ORG has been working with the CHOICE Regional Health Network, a national leader in health care reform, to help them strengthen their capacity to develop and implement some of the country’s most innovative and successful programs to expand access to quality health care. ORG is currently using its IdeaNet™ technology to harvest some of these best practices so they can be efficiently customized and replicated in other communities.
Improving the health and nutrition of children
Client: Washington State WIC Program
ORG helped the Washington State Women, Infants and Children’s Nutrition program produce the nation’s first state-level WIC Annual Report. The report communicated in a compelling way the value and benefit of WIC to families and communities. The report allowed local decision-makers to make better informed choices about WIC and helped secure continued local support for this critical public health program.
Rebuilding the health care system in New Orleans
Client: Public Health Institute
ORG is helping the Louisiana Public Health Institute create a strategic plan, strengthen their organizational culture, and align all their resources to overcome the enormous challenges and seize the unique opportunities created by Hurricane Katrina for the City of New Orleans as it works to rebuild and improve its health care system.
Delivering high-quality heath care
Client: Public and private hospitals
ORG has supported more than 10 public and private hospitals serving both urban and rural communities to strengthen their workplace culture, to improve the functioning of their Boards of Directors, to develop the leadership skills of their managers, and to create focused and ‘actionable’ strategic plans. As a result, these essential health care facilities have strengthened their capacity to deliver high-quality services in the midst of an ever-changing, complex, disjointed, and highly stressed health care system.
Preventing breast and cervical cancer
Client: American Cancer Society
ORG is working with the American Cancer Society and the Washington State Breast and Cervical Cancer program to support a diverse statewide task force charged with developing a workplan to reduce the number of deaths in Washington state caused by breast and cervical cancer. ORG is helping set the stage for the task force to successfully achieve its goals by ensuring all of the participating organizations are clear about their roles and responsibilities, and by developing systems to efficiently track and report on the status of the plan’s implementation.
How we're helping our clients make a difference in…
Local and State Government
Improving government performance
Client: Cities, Counties and Regional Public Agencies
ORG has supported a wide variety of local and regional public agencies including cities, counties, and public transit systems with a diverse set of services. Our work includes facilitating City Council retreats to set strategic goals, assisting interjurisdictional public agency boards to do long-range planning and improve their decision-making and communication systems, helping a City HR Department to improve their hiring process, facilitating a consortium of community groups charged with finding solutions to homelessness, and working with a Roads Department to strengthen their workplace culture and their accountability systems.
Saving time and money, boosting productivity
and improving customer service
Client: Various State Government Agencies
Below are results achieved by teams who were trained in and used our Zoom for Change approach to improve their performance:
- Administrative Services Division contracting process – will save as much as $1.45 million per year by paying contractors faster using a purchasing card.
- Civil Rights Commission investigation process – doubled the number of investigations completed, dropped investigation time from 9 months down to 4 months per case, and closed 18 more civil rights complaints in one month than in any month during the previous two years. Citizens are provided greater due process protection and fairness.
- Finance Authority title application process – eliminated a 3-month backlog of home title guarantees while also processing 65 more applications each week with no change in staffing. Homebuyers now receive titles quicker.
- Human Resources Department payroll process – reduced processing time from 4 days to 1.7 days per request for each of the 1,650 requests per month. Improvements included consolidating and simplifying the 150 types of requests, limiting the documentation for 27 types, and stopping three people from repeating the same step.
- Public Health Agency volunteer healthcare provider application process – streamlined the number of application pages from 110 to 6. Healthcare professionals receive approval to work in free clinics 88 days faster, and the agency saved 800 hours per year of staff time.
- Veterans’ Home reporting process – dropped the incident report turn-around-time from 54 days down to 2 days (a 96% reduction) after discovering that 1 signature, not 7, is required. The web-based reporting system delights managers with customized data and enables a faster pro-active response to safety problems.
How we're helping our clients make a difference in…
Governance
Improving board effectiveness
Client: Public, Private and Non-profit Boards
ORG has worked with boards of many different kinds of organizations ranging from social service agencies to school districts, from public transit systems to hospitals. ORG has helped these boards develop the trust, communication and crystal-clear role definitions they need to make effective decisions and manage their own performance. Our support has included helping the executive leadership and the boards of two non-profit agencies with similar missions to successfully merge their operations, reduce their operating costs, and improve and expand their services.
How we're helping our clients make a difference in…
Community Organizing and Coalition Building
Changing public policy to create healthier communities
Client: Washington State Dept. of Health
ORG assisted the Washington State Department of Health’s STEPS program to create a broad-based collaborative partnership called the Nutrition and Physical Activity Policy Leadership Group. This group, which included representatives from organizations ranging from the Children’s Alliance to the Northwest Automatic Vending Association, was formed to help facilitate, coordinate, and support the development, adoption, and implementation of a comprehensive, integrated and aligned set of state, regional, local, and private-sector policies that make it easier for people to choose to be physically active and to eat healthy foods.
Creating active-friendly communities
Client: Neighborhood Association
ORG consultants also play leadership roles in their communities. Peter Guttchen, one of ORG’s associates, is president of the Northeast Neighborhood Association (NENA) in Olympia. Under his leadership, the association has secured numerous grants and forged partnerships with local public agencies, schools and community groups to build new sidewalks, parks and trails. NENA has been recognized by local, state and federal public health agencies for its success at doing the kind of “active-friendly” community building that research shows can help stem the rising rates of obesity, asthma and diabetes.
How we're helping our clients make a difference in the…
Environment
Preventing industrial pollution
Client: Washington State Department of Ecology
ORG assisted the WA State Department of Ecology’s Pollution Prevention program to develop a set of targeted recommendations to strengthen its ability to help the largest generators of hazardous waste in the state reduce their use and disposal of toxic substances and adopt more sustainable business practices.
How we're helping our clients make a difference in…
Education
Improving school performance
Client: School District
ORG provided leadership and team development support to a school district where morale was low and declining. In this work environment, District staff was finding it difficult to effectively plan and coordinate their services and programs. With ORG’s support, morale at the district has dramatically improved and teachers and staff are now more motivated and focused on supporting and educating the children in their community.
Attracting and retaining the best and the brightest
Client: State College
ORG helped a state college assess the health of its workplace culture and the effectiveness of its human resource systems. Based on this assessment, ORG worked with the college to develop recommendations to improve its ability to recruit and retain qualified, committed and dedicated staff. This work identified many opportunities to streamline and enhance the College’s selection and recruitment process and to strengthen its ability to retain talented staff that were being recruited by higher-paying private-sector organizations.
How we're helping our clients make a difference in the…
Private Sector
Helping businesses grow and thrive
Client: Washington Retail Association
For more than 5 years, ORG has been helping the Washington Retail Association improve its performance by assisting them to secure their vital business knowledge and by strengthening the effectiveness of their Board and their internal work teams. With ORG’s support, the association has been able to successfully retain and increase its membership, expand and improve its services, and grow its revenue.
Maintaining high performance during difficult times
Client: Telecommunications company
ORG provided leadership and team development services to a telecommunication company’s sales team that was struggling to perform while the company was suffering through a severe labor shortage. With ORG’s support, the team was able to maintain a strong sales stream during this difficult period.
