The Challenge

The seed for Riverside Community Church was first planted in 1979 with Northside Chapel. With further growth in mind, Northside Chapel’s leadership team decided to graft a new church, and in early 2011 opened its doors to Riverside Community Church. Since then, Riverside Community Church has experienced exponential growth, and in the spring of 2019 moved into a newly built facility with increased capacity to host congregants as well a service a need for the community for local event space.  With the growth of the facility Riverside needed to improve the revenue generated in order to service the additional loan.  Riverside Community Church engaged Propel Solutions to conduct a three-day analysis of its finance department to identify opportunities for process improvement to support future growth.

The Objective

  • Financial Analysis: Propel analyzed base data to benchmark the key levers of revenue and cost. Using this information, targets were set to help define tangible objectives for improving the process in a language that was readily understood by staff.
  • Process Review: Propel conducted a review of key financial processes. Each of the processes were mapped in their current state with the leadership team, and all staff were involved in critiquing the processes to identify opportunities for improvement. The resulting analysis resulted in over 20 opportunities identified for process improvement including several “quick win” changes that would significantly streamline financial processes that could be put into action right away.
  • Organizational Design: An analysis of the current Administrative team roles and responsibilities identified an opportunity to clarify the structure.  Through clearly defined accountabilities, staff engagement was increased.  The new structure would allow for the complete elimination of the much dreaded “expense reporting” practices.
  • Operational Toolkit: Propel worked with the leadership team to create Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to illustrate the linkage between congregant attendance, and revenues and expenses. These measures were used to communicate the congregant value in a measurable way to allow for increased opportunity to service the congregation. Weekly Operating Reports were installed to communicate Key Performance Indicators and problem solve variances on a weekly basis and yearly basis.

The Result

The Business Process Analysis provided Riverside Community Church with baseline measures of their current state and identified the opportunity to improve in key financial processes.  As a result of the analysis, management engaged with the teams through weekly operating huddles, resulting in a culture of continuous improvement that will position Riverside Community Church for growth.