Getting from A to B

A national collaborative of five mission-driven nonprofit organizations spanning youth engagement, campus life, workforce development, and employer support. The organizations joined forces to strengthen the early-career leadership pipeline across a complex nonprofit ecosystem, connecting talent identification, development, and employment activities that had previously operated independently.

The nonprofit sector represented by the collaborative faced a growing workforce and succession challenge. Talented young adults were not consistently finding their way into mission-driven careers, while employers struggled to attract, develop, and retain early-career professionals. Leadership development opportunities existed across youth programs, campus organizations, internships, and employers, but those experiences were not connected through a common talent strategy.

Information about prospective talent was distributed across separate organizational systems, spreadsheets, forms, and program records. Each partner collected different information, used different definitions, and followed different engagement processes. There was no shared method for recognizing leadership potential, maintaining longitudinal records, or coordinating outreach across organizational boundaries.

The collaborative also needed to resolve significant governance questions. These included who could contribute, view, edit, reconcile, and export information; how duplicate records would be handled; how consent and deletion requests would move across organizations; and how sensitive information would be protected. Existing privacy policies and data-sharing agreements were designed primarily for each organization’s individual programs rather than a shared, multi-organization talent system.

The initiative also had broad ambitions for scoring, matching, analytics, integrations, and candidate engagement. The immediate need was to define a practical, secure, and sustainable foundation that could support the collaborative’s long-term vision.

En Dash led a structured discovery and product-definition engagement focused on aligning the partners around shared business, data, governance, and technology requirements. The work examined the current state, clarified common needs, prioritized foundational capabilities, and translated the findings into an actionable product and implementation plan.

The approach included:

• Stakeholder interviews and cross-organizational working sessions
• Review of program workflows, data practices, policies, system documentation, and technical environments
• Assessment of data quality, integration readiness, privacy considerations, and operational constraints
• Definition and prioritization of minimum viable product requirements
• Development of governance, risk, measurement, and implementation-readiness recommendations

En Dash defined a shared system of record for prospective talent. The recommended minimum viable product supports structured profiles, system-generated identifiers, bulk data imports, search and export, duplicate flagging, manual record reconciliation, role-based access, and history tracking.

More advanced capabilities such as automated scoring, job matching, real-time integrations, analytics, and candidate self-service were organized into future phases, allowing the collaborative to establish a dependable foundation before adding complexity.

The recommended operating model separates policy authority from technical administration. Governance participants establish data-use rules, access policies, reconciliation standards, and decision rights. System administrators implement approved decisions while contributors, viewers, and data stewards operate within clearly defined responsibilities.

This model created accountability across the collaborative without requiring each organization to adopt identical internal processes.

The recommendations addressed consent, role-based access, auditability, data retention, deletion requests, organizational ownership, and appropriate-use restrictions. The product requirements incorporated practical safeguards to support trusted cross-organizational participation while identifying matters requiring formal legal review.

En Dash translated the future state into a phased roadmap covering vendor selection, mobilization, configuration, controlled data imports, pilot testing, governance validation, training, operational readiness, and launch.

Approval gates were defined so that platform readiness, data governance, security controls, and user adoption could be evaluated at the appropriate points in the delivery process.

The recommendations included role-based training, operating documentation, data preparation guidance, testing responsibilities, and knowledge-transfer expectations. The resulting model was designed to help the collaborative maintain data quality, manage access, resolve issues, and govern future platform changes.

• Discovery Summary and Current-State Assessment
• Data and Systems Readiness Assessment
• Functional and Product Definition Summary
• Minimum Viable Product Requirements
• Governance and Oversight Framework
• Privacy, Compliance, and Data Management Guidance
• Outcome Metrics and Prioritization Model
• Risk Register and Phased Implementation Roadmap

These deliverables converted broad program goals into a defined, vendor-ready body of work for the shared talent platform.

• Stronger alignment across participating organizations on shared objectives and decision rights
• Clear accountability for data stewardship, platform administration, and policy oversight
• A common framework for resolving scope, governance, and prioritization decisions
• Greater confidence in the feasibility and direction of the shared platform

• A consistent method for creating, locating, updating, and reconciling talent records
• Reduced dependence on disconnected spreadsheets, email threads, and manual cross-checking
• Improved visibility into duplicate records and overlapping organizational relationships
• More reliable audit trails and access controls for shared information

• Simpler processes for contributing and reviewing approved talent information
• Clearer responsibilities for data quality, consent concerns, and record maintenance
• Role-based training and documentation supporting adoption
• Reduced ambiguity about which information may be accessed, changed, or shared

• A scalable foundation connecting early identification, development opportunities, and employment pathways
• Better longitudinal visibility into emerging leaders across organizational transitions
• Improved readiness for future matching, analytics, scoring, and integration capabilities
• A more coordinated, data-informed approach to workforce development and leadership succession

• Industry: Nonprofit and workforce development
• Engagement Type: Discovery, technology strategy, and product definition
• Primary Focus: Shared talent data platform and cross-organizational governance
• Delivery Model: Executive advisory, stakeholder interviews, working sessions, and document analysis
• Core Deliverables: Current-state assessment; product requirements; governance framework; roadmap; vendor-ready scope
• Strategic Domains: Data strategy; product management; privacy; governance; security; change readiness
• Human-Centered Design: Stakeholder needs and operational workflows informed prioritization and usability requirements

• Assessed governance and operating responsibilities before defining technology
• Identified the underlying business needs behind differing partner requests
• Used evidence-based prioritization to separate foundational capabilities from future enhancements
• Connected product scope, privacy, security, governance, and adoption in one integrated model
• Balanced shared standards with the operational realities of independent organizations
• Designed deliverables for internal ownership, vendor evaluation, and sustained governance