EXAMPLE: SMALL CITY FOOD BANK

Let’s look at an example of how HEARTBEAT could be applied in the context of a small city Food Bank using in this case a weekly cadence.

Week 1:

• [1 PURPOSE] On Monday morning, a group of three staff in the Food Sourcing team sits down together for 20 minutes. They reflect on the mission of their organization and few visitor stories from past week. It’s winter and they notice an emerging need in visitors needing fresh produce. They simply write down three things commonly asked for: citrus fruit, apples, local vegetables.
• [2 SIMPLIFY] On that same Monday afternoon, that same group meets for another 10 minutes after lunch. They’ve had some time to think about their visitors needing fresh produce. They have some ideas but no time to execute on them. So the first thing they do is look at all their activities including volunteer schedule and identify ones that are least important (have least value to their visitors). They have to give up something to create capacity before they can take on something new. They notice their stock of canned food is very high so they defer/cancel organizing and executing their delivery from local food manufacturing company this week (and maybe even next).
• [3 EXPLORE] The same group spends another 10 minutes (continuation of the step above) listing different ideas for getting fresh produce. They collaboratively pick two ideas that have highest changes of success yet represent the lowest effort (no perfect solution is expected). The first idea involves calling local farmers looking for fresh produce donation. The second idea involves contacting a few partnering churches for a special donation than using the money to buy the produce directly from local market.
• [4 EXECUTE] On Tuesday morning, one of the team members call a few local farmers while another calls partnering churches. They find a farmer with fresh produce he hasn’t been able to sell and needs to move quickly. Churches are taking longer to respond since they need to involve their Board members to get donation approvals.
• [4 EXECUTE] On Wednesday morning, the team members collectively agree to proceed with the farmer. They schedule a pick-up (available because they don’t have pickup canned food) and schedule a few volunteers to help unload (previously scheduled to help with canned food unload). Bulletin is distributed to let visitors know fresh produce will be available starting Friday.
• [4 EXECUTE] Pickup from farmer happens on Thursday morning. As produce arrives, the volunteers report some of the fruit is rotten and needs to be sorted before making it available to Food Bank visitors. Volunteers help with the sorting and prep the produce to be available for next day.
• [5 SHARE & PIVOT] On Friday after lunch as visitors come pick up fresh produce, the team talks to a few of them for feedback. They gather additional information (e.g. which vegetables are needed the most) and much appreciation. They also share the story of how they were able to get the fresh produce from a local farmer.
• [5 SHARE & PIVOT] Late Friday the team sits down together for 10 minutes to review what they accomplished, the feedback they got from visitors, and lessons learned. They realize they need more advanced notice to get church donations. They also realize they need additional volunteers to sort fresh produce, since some if it may be rotten. More importantly, they learn from visitor feedback that the need for fresh produce is larger then expected. They also learn which vegetables are needed the most.

Week 2:

• [1 PURPOSE] On Monday morning, the same group sits down together for 20 minutes. They once again remind themselves of their purpose and few visitor stories from past week. They remember from Friday that need for fresh produce will increase throughout winter. They write down one question “How can we deliver fresh produce to our visitors every week?”
• [2 SIMPLIFY] On that same Monday afternoon, that same group meets for another 10 minutes after lunch. They have lessons they learned in the previous week and some ideas on sourcing fresh produce throughout the winter. Again they have no time to execute their ideas. So the first thing they do is look at all their activities including volunteer schedule and identify ones that are least important (have least value to their visitors). They review which types of products are being requested the least in last 2 months. They notice their demand for baby formula and diapers dropped by 50% so they reorganize their pickup schedule to happen every two weeks instead of weekly. That will give them the additional time, vehicle, and volunteers to arrange for fresh products pickup.
• … and so on with the same cycle every week