Many organizations look for ways to improve their decision-making practices. Few, however, must put them to the test under conditions as challenging as those faced by nonprofit legal aid provider Columbia Legal Services (CLS) in the spring of 2020.

Fruit packers in Eastern Washington, faced with the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic and seeking protections, went on strike and called on CLS to help. The situation for CLS was fraught: How could it fulfill its mission to serve groups like the farm workers while at the same time ensuring that its own employees weren’t unduly exposed to danger? There was no time for extended contemplation—good decisions needed to happen quickly.

Fortunately, CLS had a clear decision-making model in place thanks to a 2018 refresh of their core strategy. Working with Bridgespan’s Leading for Impact program [link], the organization had narrowed down the populations for whom it would offer legal assistance, focusing their efforts on undocumented immigrants, incarcerated individuals, and policy advocacy for low-income people living in Washington state.

The strategy refresh also involved retooling their decision-making process, which had lacked discipline, transparency, and inclusivity, despite the latter two being strong organizational values. Their new decision-making tool, RAPID [link to our piece], delivered a time-tested starting point from which the CLS team could imagine its newly inclusive decision-making process.

Bridgespan spoke to Merf Ehman, CLS’s executive director, about the lessons the organization learned as it implemented the new decision-making process amidst protests and the pandemic.

Read the full article about improving the decision-making process at The Bridgespan Group.