The mission of the Missouri Works Initiative (MWI), a workforce development nonprofit organization sponsored and supported by the Missouri AfL-CIO, is to help eliminate barriers to meaningful and family-sustaining employment, to keep people in good jobs, and to get them a ticket to the middle class.
MWI helps underrepresented, underemployed and unemployed individuals achieve a career through apprenticeship readiness programs in construction and manufacturing. Over the course of a five-week program, they help students address some of their barriers, give them core comprehensive skills, and expose them to all the different careers within that sector.
The MWI strives to be a leader in innovation and efficiency so that they can spend less time on operational tasks and more time working one-on-one with students to help see them through their journey. They needed a system that utilizes 21st century technology: the power of automation and centralized databases so that they could show their work in a concise and substantive way. After a successful project with Anders Virtual CFO to modernize the organization’s accounting practices, they entrusted their project to Anders Technology, engaging them to build and implement the Apprentice Ready System.
Challenges
A grant-supported nonprofit must do a lot of reporting and paperwork. As they’re supporting a student, offering them training and helping them get a good start in their chosen career path, there was a lot of data entry, gathering signatures, collecting information that took a lot of valuable staff and student time.
Typically, enrollment and new student activities alone would take an entire class day, which is a lot in a five-week program. On the back end, there are significant reporting requirements: The student information needs to be backed up, accessible and secure for the requirements of their grantors. These manual processes were not only time-consuming, but they also provided no visibility into the stories of the students themselves or the big-picture impact the staff and organization was making.
“Before the project, there were tasks that our team members had to do that prevented them from spending more time one-on-one with our students, which is really what we need to do to help them succeed. So we knew we needed a process that utilizes current technologies to support our team members in doing the work that’s most meaningful.”
-Megan Price, Executive Director, Missouri Works Initiative
Solution
Since MWI utilizes Microsoft applications, Anders Technology leveraged Microsoft’s Power Platform, a low code/no code tooling, to develop MWI’s Apprentice Ready System. MWI’s Apprentice Ready System completely automates operational processes, tracking all key steps for visibility and reduction of errors. The Apprentice Ready System keeps track of students from the time that they first interact with the program, through their application, enrollment and completion. During their enrollment they can provide real time feedback about their experience and, once they’ve completed the program, the system allows team members to easily pull concise, secure reports in a way.
“The process of designing and implementing the app was very well thought-out and outlined, making it easy for me as a client to know what was expected of me, what we had already accomplished and how much more we needed to do. Once we completed the project, the conversation continued. There was a real person talking to our team, teaching them how to use the app and helping them manage the change. We still talk to the Anders team on a weekly basis.”
-Megan Price
Results
Moving away from spreadsheets, email, and informal data collection for running operations, the Missouri Works Initiative now has a system that shows collection and placement data at lightning speed. With students and instructors empowered to provide and collect information in a more streamlined way, the organization is able to spend more time training the students, helping them overcome their barriers, and reaching the career path that’s right for them. Moreover, with the elimination of the mundane tasks of scheduling and paperwork, they save significantly on their biggest expense, staff and personnel. With this time savings – and the financial efficiency that comes with it, they are considering new programs and locations.
Not only are they able to serve more students, but to do so more effectively: with repetitive administrative tasks off their plate, team members have more time to prepare for class; with students able to complete enrollment online, valuable classroom time is reserved for learning. Throughout the program, students can provide real-time feedback that allows instructors to best meet their needs.
“The Applicant Ready System adds a level of sophistication to our programming that makes us look like a higher-level educational institution,” says Price, with students as well as with funders.
“Our reporting and compliance have been dramatically simplified; when we do our monitoring with the state, we have everything we need to provide them within seconds. Our end-of-year report will have data we’ve never been able to show to funders because we just haven’t had a way to meaningfully and correctly show it”
“This app is helping us fill in a missing piece of our narrative: the impact we make through data,” which, Price hopes will allow their organization to become a model for other programs state- and nationwide.
“One day we hope to be able to give the system and its data to researchers to make the case on how St. Louis and Missouri made a significant impact on two massive industries in our state—construction and manufacturing. If we really want the skilled workforce that we say our state and country need, we have to have programs like ours to meet that moment.”
-Megan Price
With the goal of trying to be as efficient and smart with their resources, Missouri Works Initiative and Anders Technology strived to create a system that would live beyond any single member of the organization and provide great record keeping, great evidence of their engagement with students and top level data analysis on how they are truly making an impact within the industries in which we’re operating. Now they have something that’s not only easy for their students and team to use, but something that allows them to take a piece of information and say, “This is the impact that we have in the industry. This is why our work is important.”
“This system has allowed us to spend a lot more time doing more meaningful work,” Megan Price says. “It was an investment on our part, but we knew it was something that would pay dividends down the line.”
