Our client, a non-profit organization, was being co-led by the three founders. Each founder had a distinct vision for the organizations’ goals and path forward. The misalignment among the leaders led to overall confusion and frustration among Staff, Volunteers, and Donors, which in turn resulted in consistent failure of the organization to meet its goals and fundraising targets..
We conducted in-depth interviews of the stakeholder groups (Board of Directors, Founders and Staff) to determine why each was involved in the organization, what they cared about, their own ideas of success, and how they felt their resources could be best utilized. From the interviews we pulled out common themes and used this as a foundation for a facilitated SWOT workshop with the Leadership and Board of Directors. From the workshop we built a strategic plan, a budget and a prioritized implementation roadmap that included a comprehensive marketing and messaging plan. Additionally, we recommended a change in organization structure from three Co-leaders to one Leader with the other two Founders taking an Executive Director role with distinct areas of responsibility and developed a decision-making protocol for both strategic and tactical decisions.
With the adoption of the strategic plan and roadmap, new leadership structure, and decision-making protocol the organization (including leaders, staff and volunteers) had clarity of purpose and an increased level of engagement. Within 12 months – and for the first time ever – the organization was consistently achieving its goals and fundraising targets.
