So, I read a lot of articles related to marketing, startup, and nonprofit.

It occurred to me that most of the articles are about: how to improve X when doing Y, right? How to get more followers on LinkedIn , how to rank better in Google, 5 design elements that will improve your time on site, etc.

Don’t get me wrong. I think they’re awesome!

But I wanted to give you a friendly reminder of an often overlooked aspect  of continually growing your nonprofit :

Elon Musk noted in a video that 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 are looking to improve processes and often find that there are many things they can do better.

I say, let’s fix the roof while it’s sunny outside. Let’s not wait for it to rain.

Trust me, doing this will not be boring and you will get much better results after this assessment.

I mean, what’s so boring about being able to double the number of visitors you get with half the time or budget?

Let’s get started!

How to Start Evaluating Your Processes So You Know How to Improve

Most processes fall into one of 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 to  build platforms where people do the work . No wonder Facebook, GoFundMe, phone number list DonorsChoose, and other platforms have grown so quickly.)

Once you’ve established that, virtual event marketing you can think about ways to improve processes or take a leap into the next category.

For example: You can try to figure out how to improve the way you grow your Social Media following, but chances are that using tools will be your best bet.

Here are some examples of ways to improve. I will discuss a few, but it is up to you to find your own areas where you can save time or money .

Think about your repetitive tasks. What do you do every day and how can you improve?

Some ways to improve your processes

Employees do the work

Set up checklists and templates to save time

Some things, you should do yourself or have someone else do them. There is no other way around it. Examples of such tasks are: writing articles, answering emails , china numbers etc.

Improving these tasks can be quite easy sometimes. For example: using checklists and templates. Using an email template , instead of not using an email template, can save you up to 30 seconds per email. That’s an hour for every 120 emails! Using great checklists or templates when writing articles can save you a lot more.

Think about what activities you repeat regularly and try to set up checklists or templates so that you can complete these tasks much more efficiently.

Use tools to work more efficiently

Every time I introduce a new tool, people get a smile on their faces. They often can’t imagine how much time they can save by using the best tools . Did you know that people still use Paint to create graphics? No really, they do! So you can imagine how happy they are when I introduce them to Canva.

Tools allow you to work smarter, not harder.  Check out a list I wrote of great tools you could use, here .

Find ways to build community

I said before that there is no way to avoid writing articles yourself, but there is. You can inspire others to write articles about your domain. I think Moz is doing a great job with their  YouMoz Blog . People are more than happy to write quality content for them.

You can find ways to write quality articles in the shortest time possible using the best tools , but you would never match the impact of great user-generated content.

As you grow your NGO, think of ways to inspire others to create content. It can be in the form of comments, social media submissions, guest posts, you name it.