Industry Innovation Leaders – Hackathon at CMN Hospitals

The Innovation team at CMN Hospitals is constantly working on new ways to raise funds, raise awareness, and most importantly save kids. We know that we must be innovation leaders to fulfill our aspirations of saving kids’ lives.

At CMN Hospitals, we’re gearing up for our 2nd Innovation Hackathon. If you’re not quite sure what that is, we’ve got you covered.

Wait, what is a Hackathon?
We’re super glad you asked. Hackathon is a full day where everyone on our team can leave their desk, leave their regular duties, and put a full day toward something that they love that they think can help us solve problems for our organization and our network. We only ask that they share their results with us at the end.

Hmmm. I’m not sold.
It took us a minute to get on board too. But cutting-edge companies like Facebook, Google, and Adobe all do hackathons to allow employees to better the company in unrestricted and interesting new ways. Their results convinced us to give it a chance, and our 1st Hackathon solidified this event.

But they’re all tech companies and CMN Hospitals is a Non Profit.
You’re right. They are, but we’re the first major NPO (that we know of) that has a full-scale Hackathon day for its staff. We are committed to doing right, not being right; in order to do that we needed to listen to our people’s ideas–even if they’re outside of their day-to-day jobs. We knew that our staff has great ideas to increase efficiency, share our message, and increase fundraising if they only had the chance. Last spring, we gave them that chance. We had an incredible response and picked 2 projects that are in the works to revolutionize our processes here at CMN Hospitals.

What happens that day? 
Our staff spends the whole day working in self-chosen teams, working on a project they came up with. We give them brain fuel (awesome food), but mostly we give them time and space. Throughout the day, our Innovation team checks and supports the working groups. The next day, we have a big lunch party and everyone shares their work!

This idea is awesome. I want to help!
Have a great idea you think our teams should work on?
Interested in hosting up your own Hackathon to benefit CMN Hospitals?
Have an innovation team that can help us continue our work?
We’d love to hear from you. Reach out to Megan Hillier-Geisler at mhillier@cmnhopsitals.org.