A leading educational charity in the UK partnered with North Highland to amplify its nationwide impact. The charity sought to unify its five regional offices through a "one-organization" operating model and modernized ways of working. Putting customer and colleague experience at the forefront, we collaborated to streamline the lead-to-impact journey and develop a standardized corporate offering. These strategic improvements have expanded the organization's capacity and created new opportunities to advance its crucial mission: eradicating inequality from society. Read on to explore our partnership.
Client Situation
The charity was making profound impacts in empowering organizations and individuals to challenge inequality effectively. Yet with heightened demand for its services and an ever-growing need for education in the UK, the organization faced a pivotal moment: it needed to address fractured operations or risk stunting the impact of its mission. Success had created its own challenges. Operating independently, each regional office had developed unique approaches that prevented the organization from scaling its crucial work effectively.
Working together, we focused on breaking down silos and creating common ground across the charity's five regional offices. Our approach centered on the steps crucial to amplifying the organization's impact:
- Simplifying operations,
- Elevating experiences for both colleagues and customers, and
- Building the capabilities needed to generate insights that would drive more intentional decision-making.
Our Approach
To achieve meaningful change and sustainable results, the North Highland team identified three pivotal areas that would help transform the charity:
- Streamlining the lead-to-impact process. Designing a standardized approach to ensure all customers receive a consistent, high-quality experience throughout their journey with the organization, from initial inquiry through quoting and delivery of educational programs to post-delivery impact assessment.
- Simplifying and automating survey analysis and impact reporting. Harnessing data to drive intentional decision-making, improve efficiency, and enhance transparency, enabling the organization to optimize resources and amplify its impact.
- Unleashing the full potential of corporate business market opportunities. Crafting a streamlined offering and approach to engage corporate customers, opening new doors for growth and influence.
This approach was guided by three key design principles:
- Enabling step changes through collective agreement and training. Meeting the charity where it was and creating sustainable solutions that move the organization forward without major overhauls.
- Establishing a “standard by rule, regional variation by exception” approach. Driving the one-organization model while allowing for necessary local adaptations, balancing consistency with flexibility.
- Prioritizing scalability and reducing resource dependency. Ensuring that colleague capacity is no longer a bottleneck to progress.
In a collaborative effort, we formed cross-functional teams, engaging 50 percent of the organization and representatives from all five offices. We embarked on a transformative journey, beginning with a comprehensive assessment of the current state. Leveraging an agile approach, we prioritized initiatives based on their potential impact and alignment with strategic goals. Through iterative cycles, we designed, built, tested and refined solutions, ensuring continuous value delivery and maintaining the flexibility to adapt based on feedback. Recognizing the importance of empowering people, we also provided targeted training to support the adoption of new processes and tools.
Value Delivered
This work has positioned the charity for exponential growth in its reach and impact. The development of a unified lead-to-impact service blueprint has created a consistent experience across all regions while empowering each office’s unique practices with their local partners and communities. Analysis of early results suggests a remarkable tripling of potential leads, which could boost annual revenue by 10 percent and reach 21,000 more people each year.
These numbers tell a story of gaining momentum, as thousands more individuals and organizations join the ranks of those equipped with the tools and knowledge to confront inequality head-on and foster positive change in their communities.
One leader noted, “North Highland’s collaborative approach of working closely with clients to co-create solutions tailored to their unique needs was instrumental in helping us to address some of the challenges that we faced. North Highland’s expertise, combined with their deep understanding of our mission, allowed us to streamline operations, improve communication, and ultimately enhance our ability to reach more people with our education [programs]. Their approach ensured that we could implement meaningful changes while staying true to the core values and local connections that make [the charity] such an impactful [organization].”
Through process automation and new tooling, we unlocked approximately 290 hours of administrative time per month across the organization, allowing the charity’s dedicated team to shift their focus from administrative tasks to delivering high-impact educational programs. This efficiency gain represents a significant step forward in the charity's ability to scale operations effectively and drive meaningful change.
With active participation of more than half of the organization's workforce and a steadfast focus on training and ownership, colleagues shared their excitement for being involved in shaping the future of their organization. They expressed confidence in adopting the solutions and new ways of working.
Through our collaboration, we developed several key assets to support sustained growth:
- A standardized pricing methodology built on a simplified course catalog.
- Comprehensive Power BI reporting that enables targeted outreach through actionable insights on sales, finance, and delivery across regions and audiences
- A corporate engagement blueprint that serves as a model for reaching other customer segments.
This evolution marks the first step in the charity’s journey towards achieving its mission at scale. Through these improvements, the organization is poised to further refine its operational activities, make data-driven decisions, and most importantly, expand its vital work in challenging inequality and creating positive change across the UK.
