Building our Community - One Engagement at a Time
It is National Volunteer Month – a time dedicated to recognizing the importance volunteers who donate their time, resources, and talents to improve their communities. Forum Solutions continues to be deeply involved with our Seattle community.
In addition to the volunteer work and board memberships that Forum employees opt to do in their free time, Forum offers a variety of ways that associates can give back together through their community outreach programs. This commitment has only continued to expand as we have grown as a firm and to meet the needs of our community. The need for this work has become especially poignant in the wake of COVID-19, which has exacerbated inequalities and adversely impacted underserved communities at higher rates.
Each year, Forum donates over 150 pro-bono consulting hours to non-profit organizations that align with our mission with the goal of using these resources to create measurable impact for our community. Associates directly involved on these projects feel proudly connected to the work. Below are three examples of Forum’s unwavering commitment to service.
A Seattle non-profit wanted to review their food pipeline to see if they could optimize their current resources at a lower operation cost than their current model. In interviewing the staff across locations, Forum discovered that food insecurity amongst clientele is the most foundational need to be addressed before all other services they might offer. The survey conducted amongst clients also showed that this non-profit was the primary food source for approximately 80% of clients in programs. We were able to partner with the non-profit to provide a range of recommendations from quick fixes at low cost, to developing a more robust strategic roadmap. This roadmap included establishing an entire food distribution network within the organization that could be shared with other community organizations.
In January of 2020, Forum Solutions engaged with a local non-profit that works to connect families with health and social service resources. We performed a data needs assessment and gap analysis with the objective of helping the client understand where they could improve their data and reporting capabilities. We quickly surfaced several key recommendations on how the client could better collect and store data, along with recommendations on tools they could use to facilitate better outcomes both for the families they serve and for the organization staff. When the Coronavirus Pandemic struck in March of 2020, we were able to pivot the remaining work to support the client in a new service offering they began offering to families impacted by COVID-19.
“Forum has been a supporter and partner for many years, and we appreciate that we can contact them with questions at any time and they are happy to help us think through problems we are facing.”
— Ryan Dean, CFO and COO of FareStart
Seattle-based FareStart transforms lives, disrupts poverty, and nourishes communities through food, life skills and job training. Forum has been a proud long-term partner and supporter, from regularly volunteering servers for Guest Chef Night, to recently providing pro-bono consulting services for supporting the development of a new strategic plan for Catalyst Kitchens, its national professional services team.
As part of our commitment to our community and with the passion we all carry for helping where we can, Forum also conducts a group volunteering opportunity each quarter. In the past, we have helped prepare and serve food, sorted through literature for the incarcerated, crafted blankets for sick children, cleaned and pruned community gardens, raised money for disease research, and more. Through these events, our team is not only directly creating a positive difference for our community – we are also making fun and impactful memories together!