Navigating Success for in-house initiatives - A Future State Analysis
- Utkarsh Tripathi
- Jun 26, 2025
- 12 min read
Introduction
Our client is one of the leading non-profit charitable organisations in the United Kingdom with influence in several counties across Hertfordshire and neighbouring regions. The current state analysis published in the previous post illustrated the organisation as a whole and focused on their state of affairs with respect to range of services, history and background, financial status, strategic objectives, and pain points. This future state analysis is part of our project's further movement towards solution and strategy formulation and a glimpse into implementation criteria.
Current State Overview
It is to be noted that while the current state analysis published earlier captured the state of the entire organisation, this future state analysis has been developed in accordance with the pain points undertaken by 23101603, specifically :
Case #1 : Training and supported programmes Business Case
Need to formalise and expand offerings such as the "Coffee Kart" initiative, based on client research and evolving needs.
Case # 2 : Impact Measurement Dashboard
Utilisation of KPI data stored over the customer relationship management tool, participant journeys, organisational collaborations, volunteer and member feedback, and service impact metrics.
Fig 1.1 and 1.2 illustrate the current states of these programmes through the S.W.O.T analysis. Both of these programmes have been carefully observed via multiple in-person and online interactions with the client.
Upon the S.W.O.T analysis for the coffee cart programme, it was deduced that the coffee cart initiative, while originally intended to promote employment support, is only partially successful in achieving the objective. Due to an unsustainable business model, it is currently a financial hurdle that the client aims to transform into an asset. Operated by assistant manager, employment support and community learning, the coffee kart programme is expected to play a pivotal role in attracting volunteers, disadvantaged sections of the community for rehabilitation & employment support, and authorities of public interest to deliver social impact.
The S.W.O.T analysis for the impact measurement project indicates that the client has strong and meticulous data collection and storage practices with a fully integrated CRM system. The CRM system is used by most members within the organisation with a minimal learning curve. The data is neatly prepared and is accessible by the members through personal login credentials ensuring safe and secure access. Some of the healthy practices as identified through data shared are careful assignment of tasks and responsibilities and due documentation of quarterly progress. A key gap to filled, also highlighted by the client is a need for automated data visualisation integration as means to derive insights and patterns from the data more efficiently.
Research Methodology
In order to develop a comprehensive understanding of these pain points, a mixed-method research methodology was leveraged, using a combination of informal offline/online interactions, formal interviews, and analysis of data as shared by the client.
Stakeholders
The immediate stakeholders of the undertaken projects are members of the well-being department including ;
Head of Service : Well-Being
Assistant Manager : Employment support and Community Learning
Head of Operations and Communications
Primary Research
Case #1 : Coffee Kart Programme Business Case
Method : In-person Interview
Participant : Assistant Manager (Employment Support and Community Learning)
Primary research includes one in-person interview conducted with assistant manager, employment support and community learning on the 25th of June 2025. The 60 minute interview greatly supported our pursuit to develop deeper understanding into the history and operational challenges of the coffee cart programme. The following excerpts convey the contents of the interview:
Team background and history
The team, led by assistant manager (Employment support and Community learning) comprises of 4-5 members from other service teams within the organisation based on availiability and initiative. While the programme is governed by the cheif executive officer and head of service (well-being), their involvement is situational and hands-on based on requirements. The coffee cart is a food and beverage service located within the Civic Centre in St. Albans and was sold to the organisation due to a long-standing association between the two. The client also holds office space within the Civic Centre as a meeting hub.
General Purpose and offerings
Coffee cart is essentially a food and beverage counter for visitors and employees at the civic centre dedicated towards volunteer support, rehabilitation, and acts as a touchpoint between the public and organisation. It is a cafe that offers a wide but limited range of products from beverages, packaged items, and other food items at minimal costs to its customers. The client intends to provide these products at minimal prices due to their association with the Civic Centre while offering incentives for Civic Centre employees to remain repeat consumers a well.
Management and Operations
Interviewee elaborated that it takes a full time manager for the coffee cart to be monitored and one volunteer as a full-time barista. While volunteers do not draw salary, one major contributor to the costs in operating the coffee cart is the manager's salary. The client is in agreement with a premium coffee provider based in Hatfield who supply the coffee and are cooperative in providing on-demand barista training for the volunteers as baristas, all, while leveraging the opportunity to gain popularity in St. Albans. (Training takes minimal time but the baristas need experience in operating the machinery and serving customers in real-time for quality control). The supply of goods is maintained by the leading and governing personnel as of today and while there are challenges such as lack of human resources, and storage, the organisation intends to streamline the supply of goods in the future. Division of responsibilities over the supply and storage of raw materials pose operational challenges frequently. Supply includes supporting ingredients for coffee, tea, food items, packaged beverages, and etc.
The interview revealed many hidden details with respect to the functions of the coffee cart, the expected outcomes and scope for its scale as a programme.
Measures for Success
Upon being enquired regarding the KPIs that are used to measure the programme's success, high priority and importance was attached to the value-driven outcomes, mainly lives impacted through increase in employability, or simply persons rehabilitated through regular work. It is crucial for the organisation to drive these outcomes to deliver impact as a non-profit. Impact is key for a non-profit to present it's value to the society and plays a crucial role in attracting grants and monetary support for the expansion of its services. Other secondary outcomes are considered to be the general welfare of the visitors at the Civic Centre, maintaining attraction for staff members, providing a hubspot for consultations & in-person interaction, and the promotion of the organisation's services through assigned space and promotional assets. It is also one of the prerogatives of the organisation to minimise financial loss and ensure a break-even financial position. While profit is secondary, the considerations for profit are restricted to situational or seasonal factors.
Here are the detailed descriptions of intended outcomes:
Lives impacted through increase in employability : Since, the organisation primarily works towards the welfare of the volunteers, an impacted volunteer, ideally, is able to uplift themselves through training, undertaking responsibilities as a full-time barista, engaging with people, all, while gaining confidence in themselves to contribute in larger capacities towards the society and themselves.
General welfare of the visitors : The Civic Centre is visited by many individuals looking for welfare services such as healthcare, benefits assistance, law enforcement, and etc. Due to the organisation's vast ecosystem of welfare and support services, the coffee cart is well placed as an asset to attract visitors looking for additonal support and willing to engage with the organisation's team.
Attraction for staff members : As an in-house catering services provider, the coffee cart is a key attraction for many employees and workers at the Civic Centre, especially for catering services when needed for events. The organisation finds catering for events to be a strong opportunity to drive more visibility and sustainability.
Hubspot for consultations : Due to the various services available at the Civic Centre, there are professionals such as medical specialists, law enforcement officers, and welfare officers who may potentially use the coffee cart as a meeting point for conducting meetings with other professionals or casual consultations.
Promotion of organisation's services : The coffee cart is situated strategically for the client to place promotional assets such as posters, leaflets, and brochures.
Secondary Research
Case #1 : Coffee Kart Programme Business Case
Method : Data Analysis
Participant : Assistant Manager (Employment Support and Community Learning)
Dataset Description
Client shared a sample from their financial records for the coffee cart for us to understand the components of their financial outlook and key KPIs that govern the performance of the retail aspect.
Key attributes observed were "Number of Transactions", "Item Quantity", and "Value". The key idea is to classify a transaction as "single" or "bulk" meaning that whether they are being ordered by an individual or large groups. It is for the client to have clear distinction available between orders that they would like to prioritise for better financial performance. For example, due to limited control over number of visitors at the Civic Centre, it is a decision point for the client to remain focused at "single" orders or focus efforts towards "bulk" orders.
As on 6th December 2024, the following figures were reported. To retain the confidentiality of information, average figures have been calculated and represented. The figures span across 20 operational days and 140 hours approximately.
Average Number of Transactions | Average Item Quantity | Average TotalTransaction Value | Average Value Per Transaction |
32 | 48 | £ 144 | £ 3 |
The £3 average value per transaction indicates that most of the transactions are potentially "single" transactions i.e. transactions by individuals rather than groups of people with approximately 30-35 transactions on average daily.
The expenses of the programme suggest that there is an average expenditure of £4000 - £4500 due to the salary expense and supply procurement while income for the same time period is between £1000 - £1500 indicating a deficit of approximately £3000 every 4 weeks.
Challenges
Based on the leading personell's acute understanding of operations, we discovered that the business model is not sustainable. The constituents of the deficit are low sales volume and salaries.
The coffee cart is an underperforming asset currently due to factors such as such as high competition in the area, low willingness to pay for high-ticket items, minimal event catering opportunity within the Civic Centre, high attrition of volunteers, and ineffective promotional assets.
Case #2 : Impact Measurement Dashboard (KPI Analysis and Technical Integration of Dashboard)
Method : Data analysis, observation and document analysis
Stakeholder : Head of Service (Well Being) & Assistant Manager (Employment Support and Community Learning)
The client shared data containing information regarding activties undertaken by various members of the organisation under the employment support and community learning programme. The factsheet contains the following attributes:
Activity (Qualitative)
Outcome (Qualitative)
Funder (Qualitative)
KPIs (Qualitative)
Lead (Qualitative)
Q1 Figures (Quantitative)
Q2 Figures (Quantitative)
Q3 Figures (Quantitative)
Q4 Figures (Quantitative)
Yearly Total (Quantitative)
Relevant KPIs
Given the organisation's objective to introduce a real-time impact measurement dashboard, the following KPIs as mentioned in the fact sheet (Communities 1st Activity Data Share) have been considered as relevant. The basis for selection is the "Lead" attribute i.e. the leading personnel responsible. All KPIs corresponding to the our stakeholders of interest have been selected as relevant KPIs for impact measurement. The KPIs are listed below:
Annual staff Developement Days
Tutors with updated CPD
Staff trained safeguarding policies
Safeguarding breached
New courses aligned with local employment opportunities
New skill-specific workshops
Bite-sized and self paced modules
Positive reviews for course flexibility
Progress to more advanced courses or pathways
Achievement of Programme funding
New Corporate Partnerships
Active partnerships with Local Organisations
Community satisfaction rate
Learner numbers
Engagement with employers
Job vacancies secured
Supported applications
Interview preparation workshops
Clients in work experiences
Increases confidence reported
Secured employement in six months
Group partnerships
Further classification is required for the abovementioned KPIs based on stakeholder interest, and relevance to impact. The process for further classification is underway and shall be executed once the technical challenges are resolved.
Our contribution to the implementation of visual analytics integration programme is in a collaborative capacity, limited to technical support while analytical support being provided by another consulting agent. The abovementioned identification of relevant KPIs is an example how the analytical aspect of the case shall be explored.
Technical Challenges
The organisation uses CiviCRM which is a specialised customer relationship management software or association-management system designed for non-profit and similar organisations. CiviCRM is designed to designed to manage information about an organisation's donors, members, event registrants, subscribers, grant-application seekers and funders, and case contacts. Volunteers, activists, and voters - as well as more general sorts of business contacts such as employees, clients, or vendors - can be managed using CiviCRM. (Wikipedia, 2025)
Currently, all visual reporting is managed manually by subordinates who extract data from the CRM in order to develop and present insights through visualisation. While manual reporting may support personalisation of insights based on requirements, it does not support regular monitoring in real-time, and may consume more time than necessary under presence of visualisation technology.
Integrating a visualisation dashboard to the CRM faces the following risks:
1) Leakage of confidential information such as personal data, financials, strategies, and etc.
2) Lack of real-time analytical capabilites due to poor integration techniques.
3) Lack of flexibility or control over desired features due to improper planning and execution.
Undertaken completely by 23101603, the solution alternatives to these challenges shall be discussed in the upcoming segments.
Solutions Analysis
Case #1 : Coffee Kart Programme Business Case
Key Challenges
Perfecting Business Model
High Competition
Low-willingness of visitors to pay for high-ticket items
Minimal event catering opportunity
High attrition of volunteers
Ineffective promotional assets
Proposed Solutions
Mentioned below are some solutions conceptualised to tackle the challenges faced by the client. It is to be noted that the viability of these solution shall be further explored upon review by the client.
Solution 1 : Achieve Break-even Financial Status
The client may consider revisiting their pricing strategies to attract bulk ordering. For e.g., using second-degree price discrimination* to attract event catering orders.
Solution 2: Leverage USPs to stand-out amongst competitors
The client may visibly highlight USPs such as availability of premium coffee. For e.g., strong advocacy of coffee brand using brand assets across space available.
Solution 3: Introduce activity based discounts
The client may employ more volunteers and introduce activities conducted by volunteers for visitors and potential customers to obtain discounts on high-ticket items. For e.g., customer can choose to engage with a person in elderly care for 15 minutes for 20% discount on any item above £5.
Solution 4 : Introduce volunteer management practices
The client may consider utilising more volunteers at the venue, train more volunteers for on-demand availability of skill needed, and potentially create a circulatory system for volunteers to develop practical experience. For e.g., 6 volunteers being circulated at the coffee cart per week involving barista responsibilities and conducting engagement activities.
Solution 5 : Incorporation of technology for effective promotion of services
The client may consider employing technological products such as interactive kiosks at the venue for attractive community engagement. For e.g.,These kiosks may act as gateways to information about the client's services and means to engage further.
There are other challenges that may pose as threats to the solutions proposed such as lack of storage availability and installation restrictions within the premises of the Civic Centre however, if the client considers efforts in solving these problems as investments in the potential of the programme, the solutions and their implementation may seem viable.
*second-degree price discrimination refers to a pricing strategy where large order quantities are incentivised by reducing price per commodity.
Case #2 : Impact Measurement Dashboard (KPI Analysis and Technical Integration of Dashboard)
Key Challenges
Maintainance of Data Integrity
Real-time Analytical Capabilities
Flexible monitoring capabilities
Proposed Solutions
Solution 1: Use of CiviCRM's official API, read-only SQL access, and validation layer
Pulling data via authenticated REST API calls (e.g., JSON formal) that only return valid, sanitised records.
Usage of a a secure SQL user role with access to selected views or tables only.
Adding pre-processing checks in PowerBI PowerQuery, Python, or intermediate ETL tools.
Solution 2: Incremental data refresh in PowerBI/Cognos, scheduled data pipelines with desired intervals, and push notifications
Usage of time-stamps or IDs to fetch recent changes via API or SQL query
Scheduling ETL or API scripts to run at a desired frequency.
Use webhook triggers to initiate refresh jobs in PowerBI
Solution 3: Parameterised dashboards, central logging for data extracts, and metadata layering
Reliance on slicers, filters, and dynamic queries to explore different views
Maintanence of logs for each API/SQL call including timestamps
Usage of control table or dashboard that lets users toggle data sources, or adjust visual components.
As mentioned above, the dashboard shall include filtered KPIs based on the analytical observations developed by other consultants on the project and may include some of the KPIs mentioned in the secondary research section.
Conclusion
The client seems to agree that the programmes have far-reaching potential given that necessary adjustments are made to their strategies. They actively seeking ideas and solutions to the highlighted problems. As consultants, 23101603 has outlined the solutions that are expected to deliver value to while expanding avenues for the members of the community. The viability of these solutions is yet to be ascertained. Goal-setting and impact measurement are key aspects for the client to unlock their potential as a non-profit organisation and due to their large scale presence and strong leadership at every organisational level, the implementation of these solutions is expected to have exponential impact. As consultants, our services shall remain available to our clients ensuring their growth and success in all their endevours.
References:
Communities 1st Activity data share, 2024. Activty Data_Combined.xlsx. [Confidential information]
Wikipedia. Available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CiviCRM. [Accessed on 25th June 2025]
Communities 1st Coffee Kart data share, 2024. Profit and Loss by class 23.11.24 to 06.12.24.xlsx [Confidential Information]
CiviCRM Developer Guide, 2025. Available at https://docs.civicrm.org/dev/en/latest/ [Accessed on 26th June 2025]
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