Challenge
After a major restructuring, Seattle Children’s Hospital’s Annual Giving team faced new responsibilities, overlapping workflows, and competing priorities. Team members were stuck in a cycle of reacting to immediate demands, making it difficult to step back and see how their efforts connected to the bigger picture.
With ambitious fundraising goals and a vital mission to support the hospital’s growing needs, the team needed more than a strategy. They needed a smarter way to work—aligning their efforts, focusing on what truly mattered, and thinking creatively about the future.
Approach
SALT Collaboratory partnered with Seattle Children’s Annual Giving team to address these challenges using the PeakForm™ which combines the creative problem-solving of Design Thinking with the goal-setting clarity of OKRs. Together, they worked through four key steps:
Clarifying Aspirations: Through interactive workshops, the team uncovered shared goals, identified obstacles, and created alignment. These conversations surfaced hidden strengths and challenges, laying the groundwork for meaningful collaboration.
Setting Strategic Goals with OKRs: Guided by the OKR framework, the team translated their aspirations into actionable objectives and measurable results. By connecting individual efforts to the foundation’s mission, each team member gained a clearer understanding of the how their work contributed to the organization’s broader goals.
Focusing Resources: Next, the team evaluated ongoing initiatives against their newly defined OKRs. Through interactive prioritization workshops, they identified high-impact efforts and streamlined tasks that added little value. This shift ensured that resources were directed toward the initiatives that mattered most.
Measuring for Success: OKR tracking systems were implemented, enabling the team to monitor progress and adjust actions in real time. By establishing clear methods for review and iteration, the team ensured their alignment and momentum could be sustained over the long term.
Results
The collaborative efforts between SALT Collaboratory and the Annual Giving team resulted in:
Clear and ambitious OKRs aligned with the hospital’s mission, providing a focused roadmap for achieving their objectives.
Streamlined workflows that eliminated redundancies, freeing up valuable time and resources for high-priority initiatives.
Clearly defined roles and responsibilities that improved collaboration and boosted confidence across the team.
A shift from reactive cycles to a proactive, aligned approach that sparked fresh ideas and meaningful partnerships.
Before this, there was a lot of reactive work. People were just doing the next thing in front of them. But this process allowed us to pause and think strategically about what’s most important. That shift was huge—it completely changed the way we approach the work.”
Jessica G., Seattle Children’s Hospital
