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Description
RESHAPE''s mission is, since 2015, to work to combat criminal recidivism and promote the reintegration of this target audience. Given the organisational growth and management complexity, the articulation between all areas and activities has proved to be more difficult, making explicit the operational and support management inefficiencies, the deficiencies of governance and leadership, as well as the absence of a marketing system and communication strategy with clear guidelines. Thus, the project has 3 objectives: i) the improvement of financial management and control tools and the organisation of an effective and transparent data management system; ii) the implementation of a CRM system that will bring efficiency gains in the management and analysis of the interaction with stakeholders; iii) the elaboration of a communication plan and marketing strategy and its formalisation and implementation.
Summary of project results
In Portugal, there are 12,026 prisoners (DGRSP, 2022), of whom only 4.8 per cent are working for outside organisations (DGRSP Activity Report and Self-Assessment, 2020). Since 2015, RESHAPE''s mission has been to work to combat criminal recidivism and promote the reintegration of this target group. To this end, it works actively on two fronts: social support and advocacy. It is through the social support sector that it works directly with the beneficiaries (prisoners and ex-prisoners), and this sector is responsible for supporting +250 people at the time of the application.
Within the social support sector, they develop the Reshape Academy in 3 prisons, with 20+ volunteers supporting around 60 beneficiaries a year. In addition, the Reshape Office provides individual support to beneficiaries (around 20 per month) through the association''s technical team, with individual and personalised consultations. In addition, the association has developed a social business, Reshape Ceramics, an employability project for reintegration through the creation of handmade ceramic pieces. At the time of the application, we ran 2 ceramics production workshops, had 20+ product resellers in 10 countries and more than 20 partners and suppliers.
In the advocacy area, they have defined 14 lines of action, such as volunteering, participation in international networks like Rescaled and Wish.eu, constant dialogue with entities that make up the prison system, and the establishment of protocols with universities. The advocacy area involves more than 40 active stakeholders. In addition, they have developed the annual Prison Insights event (www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOwuNCB8B6o), which in 2021 was attended by over 350 participants from 10 countries at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. In this sense, as RESHAPE grows year on year, so does the complexity of the organisation''s management, due to the number of processes and stakeholders involved on the various fronts, and it becomes more difficult to coordinate all the areas and activities. In order to manage all the people involved in the organisation''s work, they organise themselves through various Excel files hosted in a cloud. They identified the need to implement a transversal and unified system for managing both the financial and administrative aspects, as well as managing the organisation''s contacts.
organisation. Two years ago they were a team of 4 people and at the time of the application they were 9. The growth they have witnessed and the number of interventions they have carried out have made clear the inefficiencies in operational and support management (e.g. financial) that go hand in hand with some structural, governance and leadership deficiencies in the organisation, as well as the absence of a marketing and communication strategy with clear guidelines for use by each communication audience.
This justifies the need for efficiency gains in the organisation''s central, financial and contact management, and the development of a marketing and communication strategy, which will have a direct impact on fundraising, communication and marketing, internal management and personnel, so that we can reach more people and generate more impact.
The project stemmed from a diagnosis made at RESHAPE and, as such, the activities carried out responded to some of the needs identified, resulting in the training of the organisation''s team and the creation of tools to transform management processes.
Component 1 consisted of implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) system. They began by critically analysing the tool in place and went on to identify the main needs to be taken into account when designing the new solution. The organisation then proceeded to collate all the information to be integrated into the CRM platform and migrate it to the system. They hired the service that developed this response, always in close collaboration with the RESHAPE team, so that the solution actually met the needs identified. The team worked together and was trained several times to operationalise, maintain and monitor the tool.
The second component consisted of implementing an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system: The first phase involved analysing and documenting the organisation''s previous processes and then identifying the priorities to be optimised and improved in the current processes. A great deal of research and evaluation of the different system options on the market was carried out, maintaining contacts with consultants and people with expertise in these matters. Subsequently, after deciding on the solution to be implemented, the organisation began the process of migrating and adapting to the new processes (in the financial, accounting and administrative areas). The team was trained in this regard.
The project trained 13 professionals, almost double the number planned.
Finally, as part of the communication and marketing strategy, the organisation hired a communication agency to help draw up a marketing strategy and external communication plan.
The project enabled the Organisation''s core team to be trained and the Association''s internal processes to be improved in terms of interaction with stakeholders and case management, as well as in the financial, accounting, communication, fundraising and administrative areas. With the implementation of the platforms, it became easier to read and monitor the processes and the impact of the organisation''s work.
An external communication plan and marketing strategy were also drawn up using an external consultant. As a result, they improved the communication of the organisation''s impact, which now has a clearer and more focused strategy.