Case Study

Execute global strategy for a nonprofit’s Mexico operations

Bain Mexico performed three months of pro-bono consulting to help the Mexico office of a global nonprofit organization created to promote high-impact entrepreneurship throughout the world, implement its global strategy and identify areas of improvement.

  • min read

At a Glance

  • $130K selling price of first new funding option bundle

The Story

The Situation

We identified 12 initiatives to help NonprofitOrg Mexico* support its 47 entrepreneurs and work effectively with its more than 300-mentor network that advises its members.

Bain's diagnostic identified the following high-priority areas of opportunity for NonprofitOrg Mexico:

  • Most of the entrepreneurs that become part of NonprofitOrg lacked a clear strategy and actions to promote sales and job growth.
  • The number of clients and indirect employees (high-caliber mentors, for example) had grown substantially (~100% CAGR over the course of the last five years) and informal management of resources was producing inefficiencies.
  • Seasonal funding and projected increase in operations could put the sustainability of NonprofitOrg Mexico in jeopardy.
  • Feedback from entrepreneurs was recorded at a global level, but not at a local level (and mentors' opinions were not collected, which was a critical oversight).

 

Our Approach

To attack each of the high-priority areas of opportunity, the Bain team developed the following specific initiatives:

  • Plan of Action Phase (PAP): Bain and NonprofitOrg Mexico created a program in which new NonprofitOrg entrepreneurs team with two strategy-oriented mentors to define and refine their strategy and key actions.
  • To effectively manage the most important resource that NonprofitOrg has, its mentors, the Bain team created four initiatives:
    • Mentor Selection Process: We identified the key criteria to ensure that NonprofitOrg Mexico invites the best mentors possible.
    • Mentor Welcome and Training: Working together with NonprofitOrg management, we defined the welcome pack, training documents and processes to articulate expectations of mentors throughout the program.
    • Mentor Matching Process: A new tool will allow the NonprofitOrg team to match the best mentor to a specific service, taking into account expertise and commitment level.
    • Mentor Recognition Program: We helped NonprofitOrg define what activities to incentivize based on specific a specific recognition program for mentors.
  • To guarantee the sustainability of NonprofitOrg's operations. The Bain team helped define a new funding strategy based on creating sponsorship bundles to increase the attractiveness of becoming a sponsor, i.e. market driven: fee charged to entrepreneurs receiving services, network generated: sponsorship opportunities, bundle programs, amount-based, and event-specific.
  • Implement NPS® to create an experience enhancement process in which NonprofitOrg's clients (both entrepreneurs and mentors) are taken into account. With NonprofitOrg's team input, we identified the key touch points for each group and created specific surveys. Furthermore, the Bain team laid out the technological requirements so NPS can be managed from NonprofitOrg's technology system.

 

Our Recommendations

Based on our diagnostic and our approach, we recommended NonprofitOrg Mexico to implement several initiatives:
  • Implement the Plan of Action Phase (PAP) with all new entrepreneurs and select a group of current entrepreneurs that could go through PAP.
  • Manage mentors to ensure NonprofitOrg Mexico has the best mentor network available, ensuring that each mentor is continuously trained, efficiently matched to every service, and incentivized through specific recognition.
  • Implement a new funding strategy to target partnerships (e.g. banks) and define bundle programs with different options to incentivize sponsorships.
  • Use NPS as a tool to enhance the experience for both entrepreneurs and mentors; coordinate with global operations so the technology platform can be leveraged and NPS can be implemented in a uniform way in all the offices.

The Results

We piloted the Plan of Action Phase (PAP) with one entrepreneur and the results were encouraging. He commented, "The PAP sessions were the best meetings we have had since we started our company."

Regarding the new funding options, during the project NonprofitOrg Mexico was able to sell the first bundle for more US $130 thousand.

During our implementation, we were able to execute the first NPS survey and learned that NonprofitOrg Mexico has a high NPS.

As a result of the successful implementation of the new strategy and improvements in Mexico, NonprofitOrg is planning to roll out many of the core initiatives in its offices around the throughout the world.

* We take our clients' confidentiality seriously. While we've changed their names, the results are real.

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Net Promoter®, NPS®, NPS Prism®, Net Promoter System®, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., NICE Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld. Net Promoter Score℠ is a service mark of Bain & Company, Inc., NICE Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.