Office 365 Implementation for Genesis Women's Shelter

Genesis Community Rock

Sendero recently worked with Genesis Women's Shelter, a Dallas area domestic violence support shelter, through our Community Rock Program. The team helped revamp internal operations tools and software to help staff members collaborate more effectively.

The Challenge

Genesis Women’s Shelter & Support, a nonprofit organization that provides safety, shelter, and support for women who have experienced domestic violence, struggled facilitating employee communications across their multiple Dallas sites.

Their roughly 100 employees, many who worked different hours than each other, had no central way to communicate other than email and all-company meetings, restricting efficiency in coordinating both day-to-day activities and long term initiatives. Leadership determined there was a need to enhance communication and collaboration amongst their employees, but they didn’t have the resources to support implementing this type of technology on their own.

Genesis engaged Sendero via Sendero’s Community Rock program, which provides pro bono management consulting projects for nonprofit organizations.

Leadership determined there was a need to enhance communication and collaboration amongst their employees, but they didn’t have the resources to support implementing this type of technology on their own.

Our Approach

Sendero started with a series of requirements gathering sessions to thoroughly understand the organization’s challenges regarding communications. Through these conversations, it was discovered that Genesis had a sister shelter, Austin Street, that provides safe shelter for homeless men and women in Dallas. As a result of this discovery, it was determined that the chosen communication solution would also have to support the needs of Austin Street employees.

Sendero took the information gathered during these sessions and worked to select and deliver a solution that offered various channels of communication and real-time collaboration. Along the way, Sendero worked with multiple departments across different locations so that their employees felt heard and had buy-in throughout the process.

Our Results

After thoroughly vetting a selection of office suite solutions, Sendero recommended and implemented Microsoft Office 365 Nonprofit Business Essentials for the organization, which included collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, and Yammer. Additionally, Sendero designed and built a SharePoint intranet site for both Genesis Women’s Shelter and Austin Street Shelter, which served as a central hub for documents and important organization announcements. Sendero then delivered training to end users on the Office 365 implementation tools and how to navigate the intranet site.

As a result of this implementation, Genesis Women’s Shelter employees can now connect and communicate in real time, enabling them to better serve women in our community who have experienced domestic violence.