ERA Group hjælper Catholic Charities of Denver med at bruge millioner på deres mission

Kunden

Catholic Charities of Denver shelters, feeds, houses, educates, counsels, and provides emergency assistance and critical services to people in Northern Colorado. As one of the largest of Catholic Charities’ 167 chapters across the United States, Catholic Charities of Denver’s work focuses on a wide spectrum of ministries: including affordable housing; early childhood education; as well as shelter, women, senior, family, kinship, parish, community, and counseling services.

I løbet af det seneste år har CCD hjulpet mere end 53.000 mennesker, stillet mere end 125.000 overnatningspladser til rådighed og serveret 400.000 måltider. Organisationen har et årligt budget på 60 millioner dollars og beskæftiger omkring 600 medarbejdere.

Udfordringen

Manglen på centraliserede interne personaleressourcer og eksterne indkøbsprocedurer forhindrede CCD i at udvide sine tjenester, samle leverandører, øge effektiviteten – og spare penge.

CCD’s boligafdeling (Archdiocesan Housing, Inc. („AHI“)) tegner sig for cirka halvdelen af alle de tjenester, organisationen tilbyder hvert år. AHI omfatter 30 ejendomme med 1.700 boliger, der huser omkring 3.500 beboere. Drift og vedligeholdelse er en af de største udgiftsposter i afdelingen og kræver mange interne ressourcer, herunder vedligeholdelsesteknikere, viceværter, ejendomsassistenter, rengøringsassistenter og andre. Organisationen samarbejder også med flere hundrede eksterne tjenesteudbydere om ejendomsrelaterede vedligeholdelsestjenester.

Like many nonprofits, CCD operates without a centralized procurement function that looks across the entirety of the organization and see where scale, vendor consolidation, and buying power could be employed to save money and increase efficiency and services. CFO Phil Vottiero knew Catholic Charities of Denver would benefit from such a function, but he realized it might need to come from outside the organization.

Løsningen

ERA udviklede en hybrid model for intern facility management med henblik på at styre leverandører og internt personale, samtidig med at der opretholdes strenge servicestandarder.

In late 2020, Vottiero brought in ERA Group. ERA Group's charge was to look at the totality of agency spending and create different workflows allowing CCD to evaluate its spending across many areas, with housing chief among them.

“To have an expert such as ERA come in and be that independent viewpoint, that separate review, allowed us to take a look at how spending was being done and where we were missing opportunities—something we would never have been able to achieve on our own,” says Phil Votterio.

ERA Group indså, at en reduktion af udgifterne til eksterne leverandører kun var en del af mulighederne. Ud over at udarbejde en plan for bedre styring af leverandørerne valgte de at se nærmere på CCD’s interne medarbejderstab for at opnå en reel effekt.

CCD var fast besluttet på at behandle sine medarbejdere ordentligt, så outsourcing til en tredjepart var aldrig på tale. De var også fast besluttede på, at det meget høje serviceniveau, som beboerne var vant til, skulle opretholdes.

ERA udarbejdede en hybridmodel for organisationen – et »integreret facilitetsprojekt« – hvorved udnyttelsen af medarbejderne skulle optimeres på tværs af organisationen, og leverandørstyringen skulle centraliseres hos en ekstern integreret facilitetsforvalter (»IFM«). Ingen medarbejdere ville blive afskediget eller miste deres stilling.

As turnover occurs – the IFM – in coordination with CCD will evaluate the position and determines whether such a role needs to be replaced or simply supplemented with service hours provided by the IFM. This long-range plan honored all the organization’s commitments to staff while allowing for a much more efficient and cost-effective model over time.

ERA hjalp med at rekruttere den rette integrerede facility manager, der skulle varetage alle de daglige vedligeholdelsesopgaver i samarbejde med både medarbejdere og leverandører samt styre investeringsprojekter.

“It is an evolving savings program because we’ve got a dynamic component —people—that we’re trying to recalibrate so we can start to achieve some of these greater savings," says Vottiero. "ERA has been looking at this in a unique way. We’re seeing how there’s an efficiency gain to be had, as well as how repositioning job responsibilities and being able to look across properties and business entities can recast the picture. I’d never been able to do that before.”

Resultatet

CCD er i stand til at opnå maksimal effektivitet og besparelser på over 30 % om året alene inden for boligministeriet, hvilket har fået dem til at anmode ERA om at udvide sit virkefelt til hele organisationen.

På Vottieros anmodning har ERA oprettet et overordnet program, der skal fungere på tværs af alle ministerier med henblik på at opnå økonomiske besparelser og effektivitetsgevinster.

“If we do not steward what we are given judiciously, beyond wasting money, resources and energy, we are running counter to what we’re called to do, which is to take what we’re given and utilize it at its maximum efficiency,” says Vottiero.

Hver dollar, som CCD sparer, giver dem mulighed for at hjælpe flere mennesker i nød inden for deres forskellige indsatsområder. Alene gennem projektet med de integrerede faciliteter forventer Catholic Charities of Denver at spare mere end 30 millioner dollar over en periode på 10 år.

“ERA is a partner, not a vendor,” Vottiero says. “I can’t emphasize that enough. We’ve all worked with many consultants and contractors in our day, and there are more than many that create more work than they solve. What ERA did from the outset was to create a model that was easy to follow, did not burden any one individual or area, and allowed us to move forward across a wide array of projects.”

“ERA provided us a huge opportunity to further our mission by taking the resources we have been given and allowing us to redeploy savings into additional high-impact programming.”

"If we do not steward what we are given judiciously, beyond wasting money, resources and energy, we are running counter to what we’re called to do, which is to take what we’re given and utilize it at its maximum efficiency." [Phil Votterio, CFO of Catholic Charities of Denver]