THE PAPER DIET

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"walking the talk" by going green. ... push for your organization to model that .... of PC. This approach made the chang
a way to (not) think about paper

introducing

THE PAPER DIET

Reframing the Paper Problem In 2010, the amount of paper recovered for recycling averaged 334 pounds for each person living in the US, according to the American Forest & Paper Association. And that’s just the paper that was recovered. We need a paper diet.

The Price of Paper •

The average worker in an office uses 10,000 sheets of paper annually.



7.5 billion documents are created and 15 trillion copies are made each year.



It can cost up to 31 times the original cost to send information on paper (printing, copying, postage, storage, filing, recycling, etc.).



The average four drawer cabinet costs about $25,000 to fill and $2,000 per year to maintain.

Reduce.org

GMN’s Paper Diet Experiment •

The Paper Diet began where the greening report “Beyond the Recycle Bin” ended, with results showing grantmakers’ interest in greening and understanding of the key practices required to lessen the use of paper and increase content efficiency.

• What changes could grants management professionals implement in their own organizations?



A group of GMN members—just under 100 individuals from organizations of all sizes—agreed to tell us about their paper usage.



We then asked them to spend time looking at current practices and developing methods of reducing the amount of paper used in their everyday work.



Later, we asked the same cohort to tell us about the actions they took: which ones worked and which ones didn’t?

Key Findings from the Paper Diet Based on the initial Paper Diet survey (August 2011) and the subsequent follow up survey (January 2012), grantmakers’ paperless processes reflected some movement toward less use of paper but also demonstrated significant ambiguity about the purpose and benefits of using less paper. • • • • • • • •

51 percent of respondents accept proposals electronically 16 percent use electronic board books 75 percent printed board books in-house – only 16 percent use an outside printer 13 percent use electronic grant agreements 43 percent accept reports electronically 65 percent accept due diligence documents electronically 4.9 percent have paperless payment processes 18 percent have a double-sided printing policy

– 47 percent report that while they have no formal policy, most of the office prints double-sided

• •

78 percent communicate via email 35 percent reported that program staff keep separate paper grant files

How Participants Went Paperless

• • • • • •

Accepted electronic proposals and reports Implemented a double-sided printing policy Published electronic board books rather than hard copies Used electronic agreements Reduced the number of required reports for smaller grants Changed to more robust grants management databases that supported keeping all files electronically

TOP TIPS FROM PAPER DIETERS

Direct statements from survey respondents appear in blue.

Make the Case Despite the obvious environmental benefits to going paperless, those concerns weren’t as keen for survey participants as other, more organizational and functional issues. Whatever the hook for going paperless is going to be in your organization, you must identify and incorporate those reasons into your paper diet.

Connect paperless and efficiency to your organizational values. •



If your organization has an environmental or conservation focus, build a case based on "walking the talk" by going green. If you have criteria or expectations that grantees will operate efficiently and embrace technology, push for your organization to model that behavior first.

Understand the universal benefits. •

In addition to mission, vision, and values, each organization has a set of operating imperatives that guide their behavior. For example, all organizations are looking to cut costs. Making maximum use of people and other resources by going paperless is a clear fit with this goal.

Get Buy-In Early Start with your immediate supervisor and enlist their help in going higher up for buy in on your paperless projects. Support from those on top means your project has a greater chance of success, and starting your paper diet evangelism with C-level leadership often means approaching those most resistant to change right up front.

Form a Green Team. – Take the lead in identifying paper waste in your organization and brainstorm waste reduction ideas. – Bring other players on board, especially from different departments and levels.

Embrace pilot programs. – Small wins are still wins, and can provide powerful proof for continuing efforts on a larger scale. “One of our key departments was already planning to go paperless, so it was easy for the grants management team to use them as an example. Once the cultural shift began, it was easier to plan a paperless way forward.”

Inform Your supervisors and colleagues may know what your job is without necessarily knowing how you do it. Demonstrating significant inefficiencies and how they affect others—rather than highlighting their impact on you personally—helps illustrate how seemingly small time wasters can add up to organizationwide deficiencies.

Address inefficiencies that not everyone sees. “I previously spent two days creating board books manually—printing, collating, assembling, binding— every time my board met, which was up to 12 times per year. Moving to electronic board books meant I reclaimed up to 24 days of time previously spent in paper wasteland.”

Legitimize electronic processes. “Some staff questioned whether electronic versions of legal documents were still binding. We went through a thorough review with our lawyers to make sure that we were on the up-and-up, but we also decided to move some essential HR processes online. If staff questioned the validity of electronic processes, getting their paychecks electronically showed that those processes were totally legal.”

Educate Going paperless isn’t just about paper. It’s also about all of the attendant supplies, processes, and people hours that are required to make paper into something important. Educate colleagues about the capacity to put the something important— content, information—in a place that’s more efficient, effective, and easily accessible.

Start with an environmental assessment. – Look at the waste your organization generates to help target areas for reduction. Point out how the process is already broken. “We used to print up to 80 copies of 300-400-page board books. But at the end of the year on recycling day, I’d see them all in the recycling bins, unused. So I took a picture of the bins and showed it to my boss. Then they got on board with a paperless movement.”

Tally the full cost of paper waste. – On site printers + maintenance; paper; toner; binding materials; off site production fees; storage; shipping; staff time. RESOURCE: Paper Cost Calculator http://bit.ly/paperdietcostcalc

Collaborate Everyone should be involved in initial conversations, and even those not involved in the implementation should receive frequent updates. Communicate as much as possible about what you’re doing, why, and how; share your plans, big successes and miserable failures.

Widen the circle of influence. – You never know where your biggest champion will come from, or how buy-in and quantifiable changes can ripple through the organization. – Look to peer organizations as models for going paperless; seeing paperless process in action and working may help increase buy-in from the top down.

Ask for feedback from as many areas as possible. – Perspectives aren’t always clear or shared by everyone on the team. “Not everyone cared about the environmental impact of our paper waste. So we approached some holdouts from the perspective of time wasted dealing with paper, and space wasted storing it. Once people were on board—for whatever reason— they supported and help implement the plan.

Iterate Starting a paper diet from scratch is intimidating because there’s no clear path that works for every organization. Strategy is essential. Focus on the end goal and the small incremental goals it will take to get to the finish line. Then try everything and keep what works.

Use suggestions from the internal audience. – Show colleagues that their buy-in is essential and their suggestions carry real weight. Start by challenging people to come up with ideas that might work for everyone. Ask people about their individual paperless processes and build on what works for them.

Give new processes a little time to work, but don’t cling to them out of fear of failure. “We tried bits and pieces of many different strategies. Some worked immediately, others we couldn’t judge for a while. But as soon as we saw something wasn’t working, we tweaked it and were up front about why it didn’t work. This helped colleagues feel empowered to make suggestions.”

Embrace Holdouts Most people who fear change actually fear being left behind in a change movement. By embracing the holdouts who are skeptical of or outright opposed to going paperless, you can win support and increase buy-in.

Be flexible when you can. – Everyone may not move at the same speed, and those who are reluctant will appreciate your willingness to support their individual progress. “We put our entire set of board materials—up to 300 pages—online as a PDF. But some board members *still* wanted a printed copy. We agreed internally that we would supply printed copies only upon request, and only a handful of people still want to do it the old way. Now those people they don’t complain about dealing with a few electronic documents throughout the year because we’ve respected their request for a printed board book.”

Allay fears about losing parts of the process or being left behind. – Demonstrate tech solutions in a way that convinces people they aren’t losing access to information

Harness Your Expectations When moving many people and processes around, it’s important to be honest with yourself and the team about what can be accomplished quickly, what might take some time, and what may never happen but is still worth working toward. Acknowledge your small wins throughout the process and celebrate when something works well. But don’t let the end goal overwhelm you when there are so many interim steps still to take.

Know what your resources will be. – If you have limited resources, your paper diet experience will be far different than that of a team working with a large budget to invest in new systems and equipment.

Understand that your initial goal isn’t the same as your end goal. – Make interim goals small and attainable and then build on those successes. “Biting off more than we could chew only made the process more difficult; it didn’t get us anywhere any faster.”

Address Barriers to Success Every organization will have a different set of barriers, from staff and financial resources to lack of buy-in or support. Identifying and addressing these barriers up front may help remove them entirely, or at least provide workarounds that keep the process going. Some barriers require skills you may already have internally, such as training knowledge. Use those skills to maximize resources and spread collaboration.

Organizational culture – Fear of change – Entrenchment in legacy systems

Time and cost investment – Competing organizational imperatives – Pressure to get it right the first time – Experimentation viewed as failure

Technology learning curve – Not necessarily generational – People prefer systems they know “We looked at the paper diet not as a new way to handle old practices but as an opportunity to create new practices that fit the way our staff is working now—some remotely, some purely by tablet instead of PC. This approach made the changes seem less optional and more tied to updating our work practices across the board.”

Resources

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The Paper Diet Report bit.ly/paperdietreport Project Streamline Guide to Online Applications & Reporting bit.ly/paperdietonlineappsreporting Project Streamline Guide to Budgets and Financial Reporting bit.ly/paperdietgrantbudgetsfinancial Project Streamline Guide to Right-Sizing bit.ly/paperdietgrantbudgetsfinancial Beyond Recycling Bin Report bit.ly/paperdietbeyondrecyclingbin Paper Cost Calculator bit.ly/paperdietcostcalc