Moving from Knowledge Hoarding to Sharing in a Non-Profit Foundation

A non-profit scientific research foundation struggled with knowledge hoarding and limited sharing across departments, leading to inefficiencies and duplicated efforts. Leadership needed to break down silos and leverage institutional knowledge to improve stakeholder impact.

APQC collaborated with the organization’s KM core team to conduct a comprehensive knowledge audit. They developed knowledge maps for each department through reviews, interviews, and working groups, covering:

• Knowledge needed for team tasks
• Knowledge required from other departments
• Knowledge captured during work
• Knowledge shared within the organization
• Knowledge shared with external partners

These maps were analyzed and aligned to create an enterprise knowledge map, highlighting alignment, duplication, gaps, and opportunities for improvement to enhance stakeholder value.

• Knowledge Audits and Knowledge Mapping
• Knowledge Management
• Process Improvement

Focused recommendations led to a 2-year action plan for enterprise-wide knowledge improvements, including:

• Setting knowledge sharing goals and measures across departments
• Updating technology to improve access to data, information, and knowledge artifacts
• Enhancing processes to streamline stakeholder requests and avoid duplication
• Formalizing the KM core team’s role to build awareness and best practices

• Identifying and sharing customer knowledge across departments enhances customer experience and outcomes.
• Setting collaboration and knowledge sharing expectations at the enterprise level transforms silos into teamwork, benefiting both the workforce and customers.