A member of the Pro Bono O.R. committee was invited to speak at the IFORS conference in Barcelona. The presentation looks at how Pro Bono O.R. is operated, some UK case studies and abroad.

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g.rand@lancaster.ac.uk
felicity.mcleister@theorsociety.com
Pro Bono O.R. in the UK and internationally
Graham Rand (University of Lancaster)
Felicity McLeister (Operational Research Society)
What is Pro Bono OR?
It is a service to third sector organisations in order to provide them with
access to OR at the cost of expenses only.
The OR Society provides Third Sector organisations (UK only) access to such
OR consultancy. The Society wants more organisations to benefit from OR
and recognises that Third Sector organisations have an even greater need
to be more efficient. The aim is to help organisations reduce costs and
improve utilisation of limited resources.

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The ORS initiative
In December 2012, the ORS Board agreed to (i) continue with an existing
volunteer‐run Pro Bono initiative, and (ii) employ a paid coordinator.
The Board had some doubts about the viability of the scheme (e.g.
whether enough volunteers could be found). There were also issues
around the ability of the ORS to fund this for the long term. Therefore, the
initial appointment of a paid coordinator was for a fixed‐term of one year.
The coordinator, Felicity McLeister, started in September 2013. As a result
of the success of her work, her appointment has recently been extended.
The aims of the ORS pro bono
scheme are:
1. To help organisations in the 3rd sector (e.g. charities and social
enterprises) to do a better job
2. To promote OR in the third sector
3. To give OR analysts an opportunity to practise in a wider arena and
widen their skills

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How it is organised
Felicity was tasked with
growing Pro Bono OR;
Marketing/promoting the service
Building relationships with potential partners
Identifying potential volunteers
Identifying potential users
How it is organised
Felicity was tasked with
growing Pro Bono OR;
operating Pro Bono OR;
Matching volunteers to projects
Monitoring project progress
Evaluating outputs and outcomes.

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How it is organised
Felicity was tasked with
growing Pro Bono OR;
operating Pro Bono OR;
establishing Pro Bono OR systems and processes.
Developing marketing materials
Developing a sustainable business model
Establishing standard processes and protocols
How it is organised
Felicity was tasked with
growing Pro Bono OR;
operating Pro Bono OR;
establishing Pro Bono OR systems and processes.
A ORS steering committee exists to support her.

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What has been achieved
• 6 completed projects,
• 10 active projects,
• several others in the initial inquiry stage.
Volunteer recruitment
Felicity maintains the volunteer’s database and keeps in touch with volunteers
regularly. She has recruited 94 new volunteers.
Note: The reason for the fluctuation in numbers is linked to the timing of the members’ mail out and the
months where Felicity has focused on increasing the volunteers. It is important to keep the balance between
the numbers of volunteers and the number of projects so this is done on an ad hoc basis when required.

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Here is what some of those who’ve
received Pro Bono support have said:
• Crimestoppers: ‘We’ve benefited hugely from your work and support in
all areas of the project. And from an organisational perspective you’ve
enabled us to take a highly professional approach to increasing the
efficiency of our charity.’ (Performance Manager)
• Participle: ‘I have just started to digest the work you did for us and
wanted to say a huge thank you. This will be so critical to our growth
and I am very grateful indeed for your time and expertise. The team
have described you as “a joy to work with”.’ (Principal Partner)
• The Cardinal Hume Centre ‘We valued the opportunity to work
collaboratively and without doubt benefited from the analyst’s
expertise and commitment to the project.’ (Operations Director)
What are the wider results
OR is understood, valued, demanded and used
Pro Bono OR has appeared in newsletters of different charity umbrella bodies
which between them have circulation of over 100,000, and presented a
workshop at a voluntary organisation conference
ORers are knowledgeable, well‐trained, in good supply
Pro Bono OR gives opportunities to practise and develop skills in new settings.
It offers structures for inexperienced analysts to be supported or led by a
more senior analyst, providing opportunity for development and learning.
It generates material for conference streams and SIG meetings, to support
these learning and development activities.
It provides opportunities for members who are not currently employed in OR
roles to ‘keep their hand in’.
By promoting OR in this field, the ORS may attract people into OR who would
not otherwise have considered the profession.

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Costs
The cost to the ORS of running the scheme is currently around £30,000 p.a.
The key questions are:
• Can the costs be reduced? – not easily, because almost all cost is in the
coordinator’s role and the steering group believes that the project would
be damaged if we cut back on paid staff input.
• Can the ORS cost be reduced through alternative sources of funding? ‐
not easily, there is no prospect of an alternative source of funding within
the next two years at least.
Case Study 1: Crimestoppers
Help police solve and prevent crime
In 2011/12:
• Received 95,276 calls and online forms
• with useful information
• Resulted in:
• 8,097 criminals arrested and charged
• £22,340,328 worth of illegal drugs seized
• £7,723,373 worth of stolen goods recovered
Expecting 60% increase in business but no more funds available for
staffing call centre

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Simulation Model using
current shifts
Modelling alternative shift patterns
Results for an average week

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Implementation
New shift patterns introduced Jan 2013
January performance compared to 2012 average
• Service levels increased
o From 90% to 94%
• Abandoned calls decreased
o From 12% to 6%
• Average time to answer call decreased
o From 28 secs to 13 secs
“We are grinning like Cheshire cats and I wanted to share the good
feeling with you both. Thank you for all your efforts – I feel now it
really was worth it.”
(Performance Manager)
Case Study 2: Reach
The client:
Reach: an organisation matching skilled volunteers to charities that need them
The problem:
to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of matching processes, free up resource,
develop more value adding activities
The approach: we
• interviewed staff
• facilitated focus groups of matching staff and IT support
• work shadowed a ‘matcher’ and the Foundation Services Co‐ordinator
• discussed potential measures of impact with Research and Business Analysis Manager
• examined available documentation, collated and distilled the information
• discussed issues identified with a process improvement expert

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The Solution
• Identified short term efficiency
improvements
• Recommended additional value adding
activities
• Identified ways of measuring impact
• Recommended a roadmap for moving to
a new service delivery model
The benefits
• A new perspective on processes,
helping develop, challenge and
validate internal thinking
• Skilled staff freed up to deliver more
value
• Reach services better targeted and
marketed, through improved impact
measurement
Case Study 3: Fundraising ‐ getting
the evidence, telling the story
The client: a small international ‘umbrella’ charity for street children
The client’s problem: the new fundraising manager wanted to improve the arguments and
evidence for why the group’s work should be funded
The approach began with a scoping study of the group’s work programmes, past and
present, to propose options for how the work should proceed. Two strands of work were
agreed: firstly, to draw together and analyse existing information held within the
organisation about past projects that could be used as supporting evidence to arguments for
funding the organisation’s different work programmes; and, secondly, to review, and
propose a redesign to, the operational processes of the group’s small grants scheme, with
the aim of giving these a much greater focus on impact.
This required, in both cases, a systematic analysis of a large quantity of unstructured written
material, followed by a consultative approach with the group’s staff and relevant trustees to
agree new processes for the grants

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The benefits
• the fundraising manager has been assisted in reformulating the fundamental arguments
for the funding of the group’s work, increasing its chances of securing funding
• the organisation has improved evidence on what its has done and what it has funded
others to do in the past and on what may have been achieved, plus clearer appreciation
of where its evidence is limited and why, enabling it to improve the effectiveness of its
future planning and fundraising
• the organisation has been enabled to improve the effectiveness of its grants scheme
The solution
• construct logical and graphical descriptions for
how the group achieves its impacts
• provide systematic analysis, of extensive
unstructured written material, about group’s
past work and its actual and possible impacts
• develop new logic‐based impact‐focussed
processes for the grants scheme, and then test
and refine via analysis using past grants
applications and consultation
Case Study 4: Controlling costs and
spending in a non‐cash economy
The client: an NGO and social enterprise running a health centre in rural Uganda
The client’s problem: the NGO had run into severe problems with keeping on top of its financial
position and short‐term planning, partly as a result of the complexities of the local reliance on
non‐cash transactions.
The approach began with conversations with different staff, plus analysis of files, to understand
the state of play in the organisation. It was clear that it was not on top of its recent financial
performance and current position, but it required detailed analysis of the various (incomplete)
bookkeeping records from recent years to understand why. The main problems had arisen
because financial recording processes and financial management overall were not dealing
adequately with a wide variety of debts and credits that arose normally because of the frequent
lack of cash in this local rural subsistence economy. Analytical and facilitation work were
required to overcome this, including technical fixes to record‐keeping guidance, coaching of the
new finance manager, use of home‐made blackboards as spreadsheets for recording budgets,
and, crucially, monthly participative financial review, budgeting and short‐term planning
sessions. The latter also provided a useful forum for starting longer‐term planning.

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The benefits
• the organisation is now in much better control of its use of resources, and is better able
to manage the variety of financial complexities and risks that have caused problems in
the past, improving its current effectiveness
• the organisation understands better what it needs from its local manager, and also is
looking beyond short‐term problems to start more strategic planning, enabling it to
improve its future effectiveness
• the local finance manager has increased personal capacity, for current and future jobs
The solution
• provide one‐to‐one guidance and support to
finance manager on technical solutions to
financial processes
• set‐up and facilitate participative short‐term
budget planning sessions
• develop locally suitable technology to support
this, e.g. using of home‐made blackboards as
‘spreadsheets’ to record and display the agreed
budgets
• evolve use of participative planning sessions
For more information please see Felicity’s blog, webpage, Twitter or LinkedIn
page.
Webpage: www.theorsociety.com/Pages/Probono/Probono.aspx
Blog: http://probonoOR.blogspot.co.uk/
@FMcLeister
Felicity McLeister
She will be pleased to hear from you.
For more information
Email felicity.mcleister@theorsociety.com