Fast-paced productivity is the name of the game

The first few weeks of my internship at a nonprofit have been very positive and enlightening. However, as is the case for virtually any organization, there are certainly a few areas which could be improved for amplified productivity and organizational development.

Voices of September 11^th is a very small nonprofit organization; there are only six staff members and four interns in the New Canaan office, and there is only one alternate location in New Jersey with a similar setup.  The organization was initially created by one family as a mere support group which they held in their home and has grown over the years to what it is today. Thus, given the somewhat unique nature of the organization, it will most likely remain small.  That being said, all of the work (of which there is quite a bit) is taken on by only a few people. My boss, the only clinical social worker in the office, seems to be taking calls all day long, guiding people through their grief processes, rushing from one meeting to the next, even going to conferences around the world, among so many other responsibilities. She is so busy handling the social work issues that oftentimes she is behind on her perhaps more mundane, but essential office tasks. Her outreach capabilities are above and beyond, but sometimes this comes at a cost to other responsibilities. As I have seen this issue arise on multiple occasions, I feel that the organization would benefit from hiring another clinical social worker, someone who could assist with the counseling. This would free up time for my boss to tend to other office tasks which often come up and get pushed aside.  It might also be beneficial for people in need of such services to get a second opinion for their issues.

Additionally, I sometimes feel that the office is a bit dated in their day to day functionality. I think there could be a modernization in several aspects.  For example, the office management system, FileMaker, has been in use for many years now, and it is no longer all that user-friendly.  It is clunky, slow, and looks like it was invented around the same time as the first computers. Perhaps looking into a new program would make for a faster, more effective, and updated environment. In similar fashion, the people in the office do not take advantage of more modern and collaborative programs such as Google Drive. In one particular instance, they asked the interns to create one large spreadsheet of information. Instead of utilizing Google Sheets, they split an Excel spreadsheet into different smaller sheets and wanted us to combine them all when we finished the project.  We immediately realized how this process could be streamlined, so we suggested using Google Drive so we could all work on it simultaneously and not do the extra work of combining our separate projects. I think the company would benefit greatly in terms of efficiency if they took advantage of this helpful and collaborative Google system.

All in all, the organization is great, but I do think they could take some measures to promote efficiency in the office.