The Hmong Wisconsin Chamber of Commerce (HWCC), headquartered in Milwaukee, serves Hmong and Southeast Asian entrepreneurs across the state. By offering loan programs and one-on-one technical assistance, the HWCC helps low-income and underserved small business owners get access to capital and development support.

With the recent opening of its first satellite office in Wausau, the HWCC is obviously succeeding in its mission too. But with that growth has come an increased focus on efficiently reporting activities to funders so the HWCC can secure future support for its programs.

We recently spoke with Mang Xiong, the HWCC’s Regional Technical Assistance Coordinator, about how time tracking and reporting has affected her day-to-day experience at a nonprofit.

Increasing Funding Opportunities with Accurate Reporting

“Because we’re a nonprofit, a lot of our funding comes from state programs,” said Mang. “We have to track everything we do and categorize it accordingly so that we can receive more funding and grants. We have to follow strict guidelines on reporting our time spent on activities too,” she explained. “It’s really important to our funders that we track our time and clearly communicate where that time went.”

Even though she was new in the role, Mang realized the HWCC’s paper timesheets, a crucial part of their reporting to funders, were slowing them down. To streamline their workflow, the HWCC turned to an online time tracking platform.

“The organization really had a need for a new solution that was just really simple and easier to use, so we made the move to online time tracking,” says Mang. “Everything is online these days anyway, so it’s just really helpful for everyone here to have something that’s right at their fingertips. We ended up picking Time IQ because it was very simple, very user friendly, and very affordable.”

A Smooth Transition from Paper to Digital

After going from paper timesheets to an online time tracking system, the HWCC has seen a lot of efficiencies where it counts. “Since we switched, we’ve saved a lot of administrative time on that important reporting piece to funders—which we love,” said Mang. “Having everything online is just so much easier—all of our data is in one place so we don’t have to pull it from three different documents like we did in the past.”

When asked what her favorite part of using an online time tracker is though, she quickly responded, “It’s just so very user friendly, that’s my favorite thing about it.” Adding, “Having something simple that’s easy to use is incredibly important for us because we have such crazy schedules. If I didn’t write down what I was doing, I’d forget it in an hour. Now though, I can even stay on top of my projects if I’m not in the office; I can log into the app from anywhere so I don’t forget to log my time.”

Online Time Tracking Leads to Big Wins

After using online time tracking for a few months, Mang said the HWCC saw clear benefits by switching. “By taking paper timesheets out of the equation, we were able to save about 15 minutes a day, per person, and improve the accuracy of our reporting to funders. That’s a big win for us. It’s helped us improve our reputation in the funding community, and I think that’ll translate to increased support for our programs.” And she thinks others could benefit from similar time tracking systems too.

“I really think nonprofits would benefit from an online time tracking system like Time IQ because we have to report certain things in certain formats to funders,” Mang said. “And it’s not just nonprofits either. I think consultants should really utilize it too because they do multiple projects at the same time, and online time tracking could be a great way for them to track what they’re doing on each project.”

In closing, Mang said, “I feel like online time tracking is something that not enough companies are using now, but it’s getting to that point where it’s going to be necessary for a lot of people. It’s really important for the types of projects that we do here, and it’s only going to become more of a need everywhere.”

To learn more about the Hmong Wisconsin Chamber of Commerce, please visit their website: hmongchamber.org. For additional information about Time IQ, check out timeiq.com.

Like any modern business, non-profit organizations are always being asked by their stakeholders to operate as efficiently as possible. But, beyond looking at the bottom line, how do nonprofits find out which activities are efficient and which aren’t? How does a nonprofit decide which programs are the best use of their time and which may not be as valuable? No matter what, all of a nonprofit’s efforts go towards doing good, so choosing any activity over another can be an extremely difficult choice.

The answer, like so many these days, is that it’s all about what you can glean from the information you have. To get the bottom of what really drives growth, successful nonprofits look at the time each activity takes then work backwards to find the ROI in their programs.

Time Tracking Uncovers the Cost of Your Work

When you know the true cost of a task, you can find out which activities are already efficient and which can be improved. To do that, it’s critical to have data on how much time employees spend on every task. With that information, you can more clearly understand what goes in to a project and discover how much things like writing an email campaign actually cost. Just take the salary of each person working on a given project, divide that by the number of hours they worked on the project, and you’ll be able to figure out how much you’ve paid for that activity.

When you look at all of your activities and funding sources, you can really see how well your organization is performing and which funders are the most lucrative for your nonprofit.

By keeping track of the time that specific programs and activities take, it becomes easier to estimate hours for projects, effectively allocate staff, and manage budgets. With all of that time tracking information at your fingertips, you can make sure that you’re focusing on the right projects, assigning the right staff, and working the right amount of time.

Time Tracking Leads to Stronger Teams

Now that you know which activities are ultra efficient, you can probably find who on your team is an all-star. They’ll be either very efficient (low time per completed project) or very effective (high revenue per completed project). Make sure to factor in the ancillary services that play a part in every big win, so you don’t accidentally overlook anyone’s contributions to your nonprofit’s success. And if people are spending a lot of time on those ancillary services, like administration or accounting, maybe it’s time to look for ways to streamline your process.

Beyond uncovering key players in your org, you can also use time tracking to find out how many people should be assigned to each project. By working backwards from the project hours, you can see if two or maybe even three people are needed to complete that big email campaign in time. If the data ends up telling you that you don’t have the staff to finish in time, then you can rationalize bringing in an outside contractor to help. Conversely, maybe the data shows that your team takes longer than you’d hope for things like design work, so you might want to consider outsourcing design jobs.

Time Tracking Improves the Transparency of Your Reporting

Congratulations on winning that big grant you worked so hard on landing! Now it’s time to do the work you signed up for and eventually report back to your funders. And while it’s probably not as initially rewarding as actually getting out there and actively supporting your nonprofit’s mission, good reporting is what really drives lasting relationships with funders. A great report is your last chance to showcase your organization’s strengths and authority. With solid data to back up your results, it’s easier for funders to trust your nonprofit’s results and increases their desire to work with you again.

By adding time tracking to your reporting, you can clearly show funders (and internal stakeholders too) that your group is a responsible, efficient steward of the financial support you receive. After all, so much of grant management begins and ends with financial responsibility. Factoring time spent on each activity into the equation will allow you to clearly show interested parties the true cost of your work, which perfectly pairs with the results of your good work.

Conclusion

Regardless of how you look at it, time tracking should be a core component of your management philosophy if you want to make smart, data-based decisions. To find out more about what time tracking can do for you, try Time IQ free for 30 days. Time IQ provides an incredibly user-friendly experience at an affordable price (and offers discounts for nonprofits too).

As the recently released 2017 Giving USA Report shows, there’s more money out there than ever for nonprofits. According to the report, the most respected and longest-running annual update on national philanthropic trends and statistics, charitable giving is up 1.4 percent year over year to a staggering $390.1 billion. And while individual giving makes up the largest chunk of the charitable pie, foundation and corporate giving is up too and provides an excellent (and predictable) source of support for nonprofits.

If you’re a nonprofit looking to win more grants, here are three tips to help improve your odds of securing new funding:

Tip #1 – Find Out What Works Best for You

Recent funders will always be excellent sources of additional support, but only if it’s worth your time. Sure, it’d be easy to chase after another huge grant like the big one you landed last year, but that doesn’t mean it was your best grant (or that it didn’t cost you too much to take on). To uncover which opportunities and funders your nonprofit should go after, it’s important to understand the true cost of your team’s work first.

To get started uncovering your best funding opportunities, review the grants and other support you’ve secured over the past couple of years, looking carefully at your time tracking data for each. If you’ve been good about keeping tabs on how much time your team puts into each task, you can understand how much each activity cost your organization. By understanding the cost of each task, you can find out which programs had the best ROI and which activities your nonprofit should skip next time.

Without a time tracking system in place, it’s going to be pretty hard to find out what the smart play is. If your nonprofit isn’t tracking time already, it’s probably a good idea to start now so you can start making more data-based decisions. Not only can time tracking data help management discover the true cost of each activity, it can also help with that all-important reporting piece for when you need to update funders on your activities. Time IQ offers everything businesses need for time tracking at an affordable price, and even provides a discount for nonprofits too.

Tip #2 – Invest in Great Writing

Your organization has a lot of strengths, but grant writing is a skill that’s hard to master and there’s a lot riding on it. A professional grant writer can add a lot of value to any nonprofit group, but, before you start looking around for a seasoned veteran, try to identify a talented writer in your organization that has the chops to step up. After all, the people on your team already know and support your nonprofit’s mission, which cuts out a lot of the onboarding associated with a new hire or a contractor. To help your burgeoning writer reach their potential, consider offering tuition reimbursement for grant writing classes that make sense for your nonprofit. To find courses that are a good fit, look for regional programs that connect to your mission so what your writer learns is locally and topically relevant. For more tips on how to find the best grant-writing classes, read this great article from the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

If no one in your group can, or wants to, take up the grant-writing mantle, hire a professional grant writer. Bringing a pro onboard doesn’t mean you’ll immediately land big grants, but, by leveraging their expertise and experience, you can significantly increase your odds of securing funding. To find a good grant writer for your nonprofit, look for someone experienced in your philanthropic arena. Ideally they’re local too, but, as long as they have experience writing successful grants for nonprofits like yours, you can fill them in on any regional issues.

Tip #3 – Know Where to Find New Opportunities

There are a lot of resources out there for nonprofits looking to track down new grants, and the number is constantly growing. So you’re always aware of what funding opportunities are coming up for your nonprofit, here’s a quick checklist of things to keep an eye on:

• Newsletters. Subscribe to newsletters from funders and media relevant to your nonprofit. This one may seem obvious, but it’s often overlooked so it bears repeating. While funders will typically put out press releases announcing the opening of a new grant, their newsletter will usually have extra information that can help nonprofits write a winning grant application.
• RSS feeds. If a funder or philanthropic website you match well with has an RSS feed, subscribe to it. Because RSS feeds can aggregate information, it’s a great way to quickly get news that’s relevant to your nonprofit. For more info on RSS feeds, check out (and use) Feedly.
• Google Alerts. While not nearly as foolproof as RSS feeds or newsletters, you should make room for Google Alerts if you haven’t already. It may be a simple notification service from the search giant, but it’s also an incredibly versatile way to discover new opportunities in a variety of places—such as web pages, newspaper articles, blogs, or press releases—that can lead to new funding opportunities. This is also really useful if your chosen targets don’t have RSS feeds.

To learn more about why your nonprofit needs time tracking, check out the related blog posts below.