How a Charity is Using Baldrige to Serve the Blind

Since 1989, the Blind Foundation for India (BFI), a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, has served over 15 million blind people in India, raising over $4 million, performing 125,000 free cataract operations, donating 10,000 Braille kits to blind children for their education, and funding 115 vans to transport doctors and patients. Additionally, the foundation has worked on prevention, conducting 750,000 eye exams for school-age children and providing necessary interventions such as eye drops, glasses, and Vitamin A.

And according to Dr. Manu Vora, chairman and president of Business Excellence, Inc., the charity has done all of this by using the Baldrige Excellence Framework as a way to manage its work and ensure optimum efficiency and effectiveness.

"The Baldrige framework has added great value throughout the BFI journey," said Vora. "By using various concepts/tools from the Baldrige Criteria, we were able to create a lean organization with six directors. Corporate governance and ethics have been used to manage BFI. We keep focused communication with our donors, for example, with an annual appeal showing a progress report. We recognize our donors and volunteers. Use of these tools helped us in becoming a donor-centric, nonprofit focusing on the actual needs of 15 million blind people in India."

Vora, who is also a blogger for the ASQ Influential Voices program, said he has been familiar with the Baldrige Excellence Framework and its Criteria from his work since 1990 in quality management at AT&T Bell Laboratories. "Since 1993, I have integrated these Criteria in my Total Quality Management course in MBA programs at various business schools globally," he said. "I am convinced that the Baldrige framework provides important guidance to effectively manage an organization."

The Baldrige framework is used to ensure that the nonprofit considers all elements of its operations--by aligning its quality tools with the Baldrige Criteria. For example,

• Leadership category focus: Vision, Mission, Values, Ethics, Governance, Social Responsibility, Lean, Board of Directors, Plan Do Study Act (PDSA)

• Strategy category focus: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) Analysis; Balanced Scorecard; and Hoshin Planning

• Customers category focus: Voice of the Customer (VOC), single yearly update to donors (Lean)

• Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management category focus:  Benchmarking with other nonprofit organizations

• Workforce category focus: Recognition of donors and volunteers

• Operations category focus: Brainstorming, Affinity Diagram, Pareto Principle, Ishikawa Diagram, Lean, Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI), Process Mapping, SIPOC, Problem Solving, Medical Partner Development in India

• Results category focus: Feedback Reports to Donors, Gantt Chart, Critical Path Method (CPM), Risk Matrix

"The Baldrige framework provides an excellent platform to manage any organization," said Vora. "The assessment helps in focusing on value addition to stakeholders (donors, volunteers, the community, etc.), with a continuous-improvement philosophy. For nonprofits with limited resources, the Baldrige framework is a great way to optimize resources and provide value to society."

How might your volunteer work be made more efficient and focused on value through use of the Baldrige framework?