Justice Informed Culture Diagnostic Sandbox

Justice Informed is preparing to quietly pilot a new offer for small to medium-sized non-profit organizations (10-250 staff) that want mission-driven impact while creating a safe and inclusive work culture environment for their staff and board, but are experiencing staff culture issues that undermine their organizational goals and make retention a challenge.

Many nonprofit leaders are laser focused upon, evaluated by funders and their stakeholders on the basis of, and assume their primary goal is to have an external, mission-focused impact..even and often at the expense of their internal staff. Even more challenging is that many nonprofit leaders aren’t aware that there are accessible tools and strategies that other sectors have used for decades.

The corporate sector is lightyears ahead when it comes to understanding the real, financial and reputational risks of lacking a defined and engaged culture: having employees who aren’t motivated, don’t feel fully included, hide parts of their identity, seek out or share gossip, wouldn’t recommend their organization to a friend looking for a job, and who aren’t clear on what the mutual responsibilities are when it comes to creating a healthy, inclusive, powerful workplace.

For all this opportunity, many nonprofit leaders don’t look at culture as the elephant in the room when it comes to a better workplace. They assume it’s always salary or people just not wanting to work. A recent Glassdoor report noted that “Culture and Values” were the most important part of employee satisfaction and retention. Even more than senior leadership quality or promotion opportunities.

The reality is that many nonprofits have unnecessarily high staff turnover rates ( Nonprofits often shoulder the cost onto employees, but smart ones get ahead of this problem.

This problem drives decreased workplace trust, increased staff tensions and turnover, and increased employee costs, driven by…

• Low retention

  • Loss of trust in leadership

  • Increased negative talk about organizational brand

  • All-sector turnover average is 12%, whereas nonprofits average 19%.

  • Some nonropfit sectors like arts and culture or domestic violence services average 35% or 29%, respectively.

  • Smaller organizations (budgets under $2m/yr) fare worse, where turnover averages 6% higher than for orgs larger than $2m.

• Long-term vacancies

  • Decreased morale as remaining employees take on work outside their role

• Increased payroll costs

  • Doubling existing staff up on work leads to the need for unplanned supplemental bonuses and/or overtime costs

  • As an example, an employee that is paid, on average $50,000/year plus benefits can have replacement costs of over $4500 per person—not including costs to morale for staff who have to do their work or spend countless hours recruiting or onboarding them. An $80,000/yr staff member can cost upwards or $7,000 to replace. Higher level staff cost even more.

• Employee burnout

  • Productivity goes down

  • Decreased quality of service delivery

The Culture Diagnostic will provide clarity on internal team culture dynamics, insights about what employees experience, expect and see as either an organizational or personal responsibility toward ensuring a healthy workplace culture, and a culture map that includes the identification of major cultural problems and opportunity areas for organizations lacking a framework for understanding and growing a healthy workplace culture, an in-house, dedicated HR/People leader, or the general employee capacity to get data-driven, actionable insights on the employee culture and inclusive practices in their workplace.

The JI Culture Diagnostic promises a clearly defined framework for organizations to… 

1) QUICKLY IDENTIFY WHERE THEIR STAFF AND LEADERSHIP FEEL THE ORGANIZATION IS MOST STRONG OR LACKING AS IT PERTAINS TO CULTURE, WORKPLACE BELONGING, POTENTIAL STAFF CONFLICT, INCLUSION, AND CURRENT CULTURE EFFORTS

• How do staff experience the current workplace culture; existing investments made into ensuring a diverse, inclusive, equitable workplace; and the sufficiency of existing workplace practices and policies created to advance or support them to achieve the goals of the organization?

• This information is benchmarked as an aggregate for a nonprofit but also across over a dozen identity markers, such as race, gender, age, level of leadership, and more so leaders can target their culture strategy and approach

• What parts of the organization’s existing staff’s identities, experiences, and interpersonal practices are being supported, invisibilized, or endangered in such a way that it could lead to a risk for the organization--but staff do not speak up about these things to leaders?

2) LEARN THE COMPREHENSIVE POLICIES, PRINCIPLES, AND PRACTICES NEEDED TO CREATE THEIR DESIRED CULTURE

• The survey itself guides leaders and staff on the various areas that are culture defining and impacting

• An understanding of which areas across the organization need to be measured comprehensively, with respect to organizational culture, inside of the JI Social Impact Spectrum
  
  

3) GET AN IMMEDIATE QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE ASSESSMENT OF CURRENT POLICIES, PRINCIPLES, AND PRACTICES ACROSS CRITICAL CULTURE HOT SPOTS IN THE ORGANIZATION

• Out of all the areas that need to be measured, which ones are foundational to look at and address right away, if time constraints and or budgets are tight?

  • Said another way, if policies, principles and practices are misaligned in these areas, the organization is going to likely experience high turnover, low morale, and be sitting on a potential powder keg for internal volatility and chaos (ASSESSING THESE FOUNDATIONAL AREAS ARE WHERE THE DIAGNOSTIC FOCUSES)

• Where there are policies and practices invested in by the organization, which do staff know are available, which are used or underutilized, which are sufficient or lacking, and which are needed?

4) IDENTIFY BEST PRACTICES FOR ADDRESSING GAPS IN INTENTION VS OUTCOMES IN CURRENT POLICIES, PRINCIPLES, AND PRACTICES ACROSS CRITICAL HOT SPOTS IN THE ORGANIZATION

• Provide evidence-based best practices to draw insight and inspiration from case studies and challenges JI has already worked to support or solve in the past for similar organizations that have dealt with challenges consistent with those this organization is currently facing

• What is the level of trust that staff have for their peers, supervisors, executive leaders, and other stakeholders to advance a healthy workplace culture?

• What percentage of staff would recommend your organization (or not) for an open position, how many may be considering leaving in the next year, and what parts of the organization’s culture is creating these risks?

Joining the Sandbox will provide you with access to a fully-customized, point-in-time insights report and access to an expert strategist to explain and discuss with your leadership team how your current workplace culture is experienced and organized. The deliverable for your investment will be an organizational benchmarking scorecard, a report on potential actions the organization can take to close gaps and leverage areas of strength, and a Culture Resources Library to assist responsible staff with acting on the report and scorecard. As an added bonus, we are also waiving the Culture Diagnostic Custom Presentation fee ($1000 when it goes to market for everyone else, or those who do not join the Sandbox).

JI Culture Diagnostic: $7500 ($2500 for first 10 Sandbox members)

Standalone purchase includes the digital survey instrument, all surveying, meetings, and a delivered copy of the following:

1) Culture Diagnostic and Potential Actions Report: A report detailing the data and themes drawn from Justice Informed’s culture diagnostic survey, including guidance on how to potentially address identified challenges and make progress on culture goals and intentions. The report includes anonymized figures, quotes, and disaggregated data. This serves as a tool for insights, employee census data, and enriching the existing workplace culture and practices. 

• Quick and actionable data and insights on staff’s vision and ambitions regarding DEI work for the organization as well as their experiences of DEI (or lack thereof) within the organization

2) Customized Culture Scorecard: Justice Informed will provide an editable, customized version of our Culture Scorecard linked to a client’s data so they may have a synthesized view of their team’s scores across Justice Informed’s 20+ culture metrics. This scorecard will allow clients to filter these scores by a range of demographic groups so long as anonymity is maintained. Justice Informed will ensure a Scorecard that is actionable, confidential, and protects employees’ identities.

• Anonymized workplace culture, employee engagement, and workplace inclusion scores across over 20 metrics via a client-facing data dashboard 

• Benchmark and track progress on staff sentiment and levels of cultural health immediately, prior to, or following the initiation and implementation of culture strategies and initiatives

3) Culture Resources Library: A companion to the Culture Insights and Potential Actions Report, this Resource Library will house a variety of sources, essays, studies, checklists, and frameworks that clients can use to further their inclusive leadership and culture education and make progress on the guidance provided in the report

• Secure expert recommendations and resources (e.g. frameworks, case studies, etc.) on culture tactics and initiatives tailored to the specific insights and data pulled from the Culture Diagnostic

Culture Diagnostic Custom Presentation: $1000 Waived Fee for Sandbox Members

Purchase includes a custom review of the client’s Culture Diagnostic Data by a Justice Informed Strategist, and:

• Professional review of the Culture Scorecard and report results, including additional contextual, customized analysis of the digital deliverables

• Creation of a formal presentation to the clients leadership team

• Justice Informed hosted virtual presentation of all deliverables to the customer's leadership team, and time for Q&A with the client and a Justice Informed staff expert

Future Opportunity: Justice Informed will provide a second culture Diagnostic to conduct a comparative analysis of how culture has improved, been challenged, and can be improved 6- or 12-months from the original Diagnostic. This will be at a reduced fee of $2500 (down from the market price of $7500). 

Culture Diagnostic Refresher: $2500

Purchase includes a renewable Culture Diagnostic, purchased within 12 months from the original Diagnostic purchase:

• Ongoing assessment of progress and employee culture is paramount to long-term organizational success

• Once a Culture Diagnostic is purchased, a client may opt to utilize the service again for ongoing assessment and benchmarking progress

• Our recommendation is to conduct a Culture Diagnostic Refresher every six months, but no less than once per year

• The Refresher is discounted for existing clients for their next purchase within 12 months before the price resets

To join the Culture Diagnostic Sandbox, we need to make sure this is the right fit for you, so we’ve created a Participation Request form that gives your organization and ours all we need to know. Because we know this service isn’t for everyone, and given the feedback provided to us by many Executive Directors during our previous feedback cycle, we want to ensure we aren’t selling something that isn’t a fit or won’t deliver EXACTLY the promises and outcomes we want from the Culture Diagnostic. So there are a few things to keep in mind:

• We can only take on 10 organizations in this first cohort

• As we work to make this a scalable offer, we will likely spend as much time on moving the first 10 organizations through the Culture Diagnostic process as we do on our $20,000 Pulse Check service that we offer to clients

• Our Sandbox is a unique experience - we will be giving an experience that is many times more valuable than what we are charging, and at a fraction of the price. You will have access to our CEO, Head of Client Services, and a Senior Client and Data Analyst throughout the process. We’ve cleared our calendars for the next two months to make sure we are available for the ten organizations that participate.

• That’s because we know there will be things to work through and figure out in real-time as we move through it with each organization

• Since we know this will be a very white glove experience, at a fraction of the cost of the people hours that go into it, we can only take on a small group of participating orgs in this first cohort

• Orgs that want to participate can apply to do so with a FORMAL Participation Request, and we will review and approve organizations in the order of their completion and submission through our survey platform (linked on this page)

• Once approved, that organization’s spot in this initial cohort is able to be held for 2 business days, after that time, their spot is offered to the next approved organization in line if they have not completed payment of their Participation Fee ($2500)

• All Participation Requests for the initial Culture Diagnostic implementation must be in no later than 11:59 pm CST on Saturday, 12/7/24.

• At that time, consideration for participation is closed until we complete work with this first group, and publicly launch the Culture Diagnostic as a primarily automated offer to our entire client database at $7500 in early Q2, 2025. If you submit after that point, or once all 10 slots have been filled, all requests will be honored at the standard market rate when the service officially launches in early Q2, 2025.