So, I read a lot of Marketing, Startup, and Nonprofit related articles. It occurred to me that most articles are about: How to improve X when doing Y, right? How to get more followers on Twitter, how to rank better in Google, 5 design elements that’ll improve your time on site, etc. Don’t get me wrong. I think they’re great! But I would like to give you a friendly reminder of one often overlooked aspect of continually growing your nonprofit: Processes!

Elon Musk noted in a video that in order to build better Tesla cars, he needs to improve the factory that builds those cars. Many nonprofits are doing well, but in a financial crisis, they’re looking at improving processes and they often find that there are a lot of things that they can improve. I say, let’s repair the roof while it’s sunny outside. Let’s not wait until it rains. Trust me, doing this is not going to be boring and you’ll get a lot better results after this assessment. I mean, what’s boring about being able to double the number of visitors you’re getting in half the time or budget? Let’s begin! How to start assessing your processes so you know how to improve Most processes fall in one of these three categories: Employees do the work;

Tools or algorithms do the work;

People do the work ( user-generated content ).

(The most efficient way to run a nonprofit is by building platforms where people do the work. No wonder Facebook, GoFundMe, DonorsChoose and other platforms have grown so fast.) After establishing this, you can think of ways to improve processes or take a leap into the next category. For instance: you can try to figure out ways to improve the way you grow your social media following, but chances are that using tools will be your best bet. Here are a few examples of ways to improve. I’ll discuss a few of them, but it’s up to you to discover your own areas where you can save time or money. Think about your repeated tasks. Which things do you do daily and how can you improve?