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Western Territory recognized for innovative technology
The Salvation Army’s Western Territory was recently named to the prestigious InformationWeek 500, InformationWeek magazine’s 17th annual ranking of the most innovative Information Technology (IT) organizations in the nation.
“I am delighted to be recognized and honored by InformationWeek magazine,” said Clarence White, information technology secretary, and chief technology officer. “I share this with our entire team of IT personnel and with The Salvation Army’s leaders in the Western Territory who helped us streamline processes and boost efficiency so that more of our donor’s dollars can be spent helping people with needed programs and services.”
To be considered for the list, organizations submitted a qualifying application to the magazine’s research editors that examined key business-technology strategies.
Highlights of The Salvation Army’s IT innovations and accomplishments over the past year include its use of technology to optimize business processes through the implementation of a workflow and document management system. Developed in-house, this application automates and streamlines the Army’s decision-making process by helping to manage the agendas of the many management boards and committees that are required to operate a nonprofit organization with the size and scope of The Salvation Army. Through this system, members are able to consider and vote on many items between meetings, significantly reducing the length and frequency of board meetings.
The Western Territory also developed and implemented a performance management tool that provides a graphical summary of hundreds of statistical performance measurements. This allows leaders to easily compare the efficiency of each of The Salvation Army’s operating units in the Western Territory. “In not-for-profit performance evaluation where profit and loss measurements aren’t obvious, this has been a breakthrough tool for us,” White said.
Some of the other areas considered by InformationWeek magazine included organizations’ use of emerging technology, wireless innovations, community service and investment to improve worker productivity.
