Case study
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Dignifi Collective
A founder-led nonprofit stopped running through its founder, and a stalled county pilot got signed.
CLIENT
Dignifi Collective
SECTOR
Tech nonprofit
Based in CA
ENGAGEMENT
Fractional COO Partnership
DURATION
6+ months, ongoing
View Dignifi’s website
I.
The starting point
Dignifi builds verified social-services infrastructure for people coming home from incarceration. By 2026 it had a team of six, roughly $600K in grant funding, a working product, and a county probation pilot on the table.
It also had one person at the center of everything. The founder was the product lead, the grant writer, the partnerships lead, and the operations manager. Grant deliverables lived in email threads. Partner follow-up happened when he remembered.
The pilot had been “almost signed” for five months.
II.
What we found
No ownership map.
Six people, and only two workstreams with a named owner who wasn’t the founder.
Reporting was rebuilt from scratch every cycle.
Each grant report took about three working days to assemble because nothing was tracked against the deliverables as they happened.
Growth was waiting on capacity.
Fourteen warm partner conversations were sitting open, and the pilot agreement had no one driving it week to week.
III.
What we led
01
The Operating Cadence
A weekly priorities review, a single source of truth for projects, and a named owner for every workstream.
02
Grant and Program Reporting
A deliverables tracker and report templates, so reporting became assembly, not authorship.
03
The Pilot
Timeline, stakeholder follow-up, and the paperwork, driven to signature.
04
Partner Pipeline
Follow-up within two business days, a simple stage tracker, and introductions asked for instead of waited on.
05
Communications
A monthly partner newsletter and a LinkedIn cadence, written and scheduled.
06
Contractor Coordination and The Board Update
Taken off the founder’s plate.
IV.
The results
8 hrs
Founder time spent on coordination and admin
from 22 → 8 hrs/week
100%
Grant deliverables submitted on time
from 7 of 9 → 11 of 11
7 weeks
Pilot agreement signed with the county
after 5 months stalled
2 days
Average partner follow-up time
from 9 → 2 business days
MEASURE
BEFORE
AFTER
Report prep per grant
3 days
Half a day
Standing meetings
5 per week
2 per week
Partner pipeline
14 open conversations
4 provider pilots scoped
Newsletter
None
Monthly, 46% average open rate
“
I used to be the project management system. Now the business tells me what’s next instead of the other way around. I haven’t rebuilt a grant report from scratch in four months.
Danny Yoon
Founder & Executive Director, Dignifi Collective
V.
What’s next
Dignifi is moving into its next funding cycle with a reporting system that runs itself and a partner pipeline that no longer depends on the founder’s calendar.
OPERATING CADENCE
ROLES + RESPONSIBILITIES
REPORTING SYSTEMS
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
COMMUNICATIONS
PROJECT MANAGEMENT