Nonprofit Cahoots responds to community challenges in Western Australia by pivoting its business and growing its team with Microsoft 365

Stay-at-home orders demanded agility of the small nonprofit that runs in-person camps and activities, spurring Cahoots employees to find new ways to continue serving customers. Prior to COVID-19, Cahoots operated more than 80 camps and offered weekly workshops for young people who looked forward to the fun social experiences that Cahoots provides. Quickly, the organization shifted focus from face-to-face activities to fundamental services that could help support its customers throughout the crisis. “We realized that people with disabilities, whether intellectual, physical, or psychosocial, weren’t being served well by shopping delivery services,” says Karlsson. “So, we launched an entirely new service called Cahoots Connects, an accessible and free shopping delivery service where qualified professionals conduct wellness checks in addition to delivering and unpacking groceries.” 

Launching a new service in the middle of a pandemic took quick thinking and the right tools to collaborate remotely. Cahoots had deployed Microsoft 365 prior to COVID-19, and the organization quickly turned to Microsoft Teams to make Cahoots Connects a reality. Using Teams, Karlsson and her colleagues lobbied the government and large corporations for the funding Cahoots needed to create an accessible delivery service. 

“Using Teams, we were able to stay connected, find innovative and relevant solutions, and lobby for support,” says Karlsson. “I had daily meetings, sometimes twice daily, with government officials, which resulted in us winning a million-dollar contract.” That much-needed funding not only made up for $500,000 of lost income because of canceled camps, but it also allowed Cahoots to grow its team and launch its brand-new shopping delivery service designed specifically for customers with disabilities. This marked an incredible turnaround considering that staff had initially volunteered for wage cuts in the early stages of the COVID-19 crisis just to keep services going. Luckily, the contract that Cahoots secured made it possible to keep the entire team working at their regular pay and even hire new team members. 

“The innovative solutions that we implemented throughout COVID-19 were all possible because we kept our incredible team connected using Teams and Microsoft 365,” says Karlsson. “Ultimately, Cahoots saved 41 percent of its annual revenue using Microsoft tools to help save on travel costs, meetings, and training. We also avoided loss of revenue by giving everyone the tools to work effectively from home.” 

Adapting and growing in response to what customers need most

The move to Microsoft 365, accomplished with the help of Bremmar Consulting, a Gold competency member of the Microsoft Partner Network, set Cahoots up for success by strengthening the organization’s security stance and empowering employees with inclusive productivity tools. “We needed a reliable, accessible, secure, and trusted platform that we knew would continue to evolve and improve, as we do,” says Karlsson. “An important part of our transition to Microsoft 365 was making sure we could better protect our data—we manage a lot of sensitive data for a broad range of people.” For Cahoots, choosing an established platform was a strategic decision to invest in a solution with longevity. “Small businesses like ours sometimes choose less expensive solutions upfront,” says Karlsson. “That can lead to higher costs and risks of failure in the long term, which we wanted to avoid by choosing Microsoft.”

“Bremmar is known for supporting nonprofits and giving great advice, so when it recommended Microsoft 365, we knew we could trust Microsoft and the security standard of the products,” says Karlsson. “We also recognized that Microsoft would continue to be on the forefront of trends and innovations.” Karlsson also appreciated the amount of support that Cahoots received in the implementation process, something she says many small businesses struggle with. “Implementation can be really costly, both in the monetary sense and in terms of business disruption,” she says. “That’s another reason Cahoots wanted to work with such trusted organizations as Bremmar and Microsoft. To get the amount of training and support we received was amazing.” 

While many small businesses reeled from the effects of COVID-19, Cahoots used Microsoft 365 to broaden its customer base and grow its team. The organization remained agile even in the midst of upheaval—ultimately doubling in size in just three months. “It’s been a rewarding experience to guide Cahoots’ adoption of Microsoft 365, empowering the team to focus on delivering services to the community in challenging times,” says Brenton Harris, Managing Director at Bremmar Consulting. 

For Cahoots, success hinged on delivering relevant outcomes and responding to customers’ needs with innovative solutions. "We shifted our thinking and went out of crisis mode into innovation mode,” remembers Karlsson. “This shift in mindset enabled us to launch new essential services, pivot our group activities, build our brand, and grow our team—all during an unprecedented challenge in our community.” After launching the new service, Cahoots Connects, employees used Teams to host biweekly meetings with their user community and gather feedback on what customers needed most. “We wouldn’t have been able to create this new service and gather this feedback without Microsoft 365,” says Paul Lewis, General Manager at Cahoots. 

To keep up with a rapidly changing business plan and growing demand, leaders at Cahoots needed to hire new employees remotely. “We recruited and conducted a number of interviews via Teams,” says Karlsson. “This helped us attract some new superstars to our team and gave us a chance to work with people we wouldn’t have connected with otherwise.” 

Adapting the business while simultaneously hiring new staff required nonstop collaboration from Cahoots team members and the right tools to help everyone stay productive from home. In some cases, new additions to the Cahoots team didn’t meet their colleagues in person until months after they began work, a testament to how effortlessly employees collaborated in Teams. Working remotely also offered a surprising boost to productivity. “People are more productive working from home with Microsoft 365,” says Lewis. 

Supporting an accessible workplace and a collective vision

Cahoots team members take advantage of the interoperability of Teams with other Microsoft 365 productivity tools that help streamline work. “We use Microsoft Planner to work through our weekly sprints regarding Cahoots Connects,” says Karlsson. “It works for us because it’s a very transparent digital dashboard; we can all see what everyone’s working on in real time.” 

As an organization that employs a number of team members with disabilities, Cahoots has found that Planner helps employees stay organized. “For people living with an intellectual disability, the retention of a long, complex task can be a challenge,” says Karlsson. “So, using Teams combined with Planner helps our supervisors and team leaders break down a task into manageable pieces,” says Karlsson. Talk-to-text features and video functionality also help Cahoots create a more accessible workplace. “We love the built-in accessibility features of Microsoft products that help all our team members stay productive,” says Karlsson. Lewis agrees: “Microsoft 365 is definitely an accessible platform, which matches our ethos as an organization perfectly.” 

Cahoots employees stay on top of the organization’s long-term vision by using Planner in Teams. “We do all our business planning now through Planner,” says Evans. “Previously, we stored the business plan in an Excel spreadsheet that not many people viewed, but Planner helps us keep everyone accountable for doing their part. It’s the best tool we’ve used to help us reach our goals efficiently.”

Karlsson also recognizes the inclusive potential of applications like Microsoft SharePoint that make it easy for team members who work from home to participate fully in collaborative tasks. “From an efficiency and an inclusive perspective, working collaboratively on documents in SharePoint is great not just for people living with disabilities, but for people at home caring for children or elderly parents, or for any other reason,” she says. Today, Cahoots employees of all abilities use Microsoft 365 to collaborate and contribute to the organization’s success. “We’re a more inclusive organization with Microsoft 365,” says Lewis. “In fact, after moving to remote work and hiring new employees, it wasn’t until the first work-from-home restrictions were eased and I met my new colleagues face to face that I realized a few of my new coworkers were actually living with disabilities themselves.” 

Maintaining trust and staying connected with partners, stakeholders, and colleagues

Cahoots started with a mission to create opportunities for children and young people who are facing exceptional challenges to connect, celebrate, and learn. When COVID-19 hit and employees began to work remotely, maintaining strong connections with customers, business partners, and colleagues took center stage. “Our key strength is our team,” says Karlsson. “We stayed connected during COVID-19 thanks to Microsoft 365.” 

Cahoots employees stayed connected through informal daily meetings that were designed to boost morale and keep everyone motivated. “We started doing a daily check-in via Teams, usually incorporating a bit of a quiz,” says Evans. “Even people who weren’t working on those particular days would join the meetings just for that human interaction.” It was also critical that Cahoots kept the families of children who had been signed up for cancelled camps and programs informed—an important step for maintaining trust. “Using Teams and Planner really helped our team members get aligned on key messages,” says Evans. “That allowed us to make sure our stakeholders stayed well informed and felt like they were part of the journey with us.” 

The organization also used Teams to connect with external partners—collaboration that was critical for launching Cahoots Connects. “Our software developer was in another state, and we worked with them remotely via Teams, in addition to our call center staff who took calls from customers to ensure the accessibility of our new service,” says Lewis. 

Feedback from customers alerted employees to the financial toll of COVID-19 on many people who were using the service, prompting Cahoots to partner with organizations that could help. “We added in a number of financial relief organizations to help our customers out,” says Lewis. “We used Teams and Planner to link up with them and work together as an agile team.” 

Reimagining a more digital future

For Cahoots, the unexpected challenges created an opportunity to reimagine the future. “Our big audacious goal is to have our own smart, accessible, and inclusive camp facility,” says Karlsson. That facility promises to be a blend of the in-person experiences Cahoots is known for and the digital programs the organization has promoted during COVID-19, making the most of modern, accessible technology. “We want to use technology to offer unique blended learning programs and empower young people of all abilities to connect, learn, and celebrate in a safe, supported environment,” says Karlsson. “Tools like Microsoft Teams can also help parents and families to connect with their loved ones at Cahoots camps.” 

Cahoots committed itself to creating virtual versions of its popular events whenever possible. One such event, the Cahoots in Concert talent show, had six finalists perform live for a virtual audience of more than 1,000 people. “Usually, this competition is part of an in-person festival,” says Evans. “This year, we had remarkable success planning the event in Teams and taking the concert online. It was amazing to see the finalists standing in front of the mic giving it their all.” 

Thirteen-year-old Kade DeLuca was one of those finalists, and he walked away with a 2020 Rising Star award thanks to his performance of The Prayer. “We all felt a little isolated during stay-at-home mandates, but participating in Cahoots in Concert made me feel really supported,” he says. “I went from not putting my hand up in class to singing on a stage in front of a lot of people. It was an amazing opportunity.” 

“We know that the future is digital. Supporting people, especially those living with disabilities, to interact online safely and to develop their digital literacy is something Cahoots is excited to do,” concludes Karlsson. Embracing digital tools has already helped Cahoots extend its reach and increase the organization’s social impact for more families in need. After the success of Cahoots Connects, the organization has plans for an accessible ride share initiative. For a small nonprofit that has prospered in the midst of big challenges, reaching its goals seems all the more achievable. 

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