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Serve America!
(SA) is a national non-partisan advocacy group
that focuses on the advancement of
disadvantaged young people. MAG helped the
organization identify core barriers to
increased effectiveness, develop and implement
a strategic plan, and strengthen management.
MAG’s work led directly to a $10M general
support grant for the organization.
A MAG senior consultant was approached by the executive director of SA who had been strongly urged by a large funder to seek help in building a more diversified funding base, and was given a special grant to hire a consultant. She also wanted management training for senior managers. We decided together to begin with a fund-raising audit and recommendations (per the funder’s deadline), and then explore what was needed for management training.
ANALYSIS
MAG reviewed SA’s written program and organization materials and conducted confidential interviews with staff, Board members, funders, and colleagues in the field. Interview questions probed the organization’s program effectiveness, management efficiency, human resources and financial management, the role of the Board, and many issues related to fund-raising effectiveness and opportunities.
Interviewees cited SA repeatedly for the excellence of its work, the clarity of its purpose, the high quality and commitment of its staff, and the extraordinary leadership and credibility of its director. The organization was seen as having a big impact on its issues, as significant as any group MAG had ever worked with. At the same time, the interviews surfaced a number of serious internal problems. These included: high staff turnover, particularly among junior and newer staff; the organization saying yes to too many things; not enough communication and engagement across departments; lack of an organization-wide budget and regular financial reports for senior managers and Board members; unresolved conflicts among senior staff; over-dependence on the Executive Director to raise all the funds; and the absence of someone to run the organization during the Executive Director’s frequent and extended travel.
MAG concluded that it was only the extraordinary efforts of a handful of extremely competent, committed, and hardworking senior staff members that had masked the seriousness of these problems—forging ahead as they did and working around road blocks but that the situation was dangerous and unstable. MAG presented very specific recommendations—along with strategies and a road map for proceeding — for raising more money from foundations, businesses, and individual donors, and for generating earned income in several new ways. MAG also recommended that SA address two central issues that could prevent the fund-raising success of SA and also – if not addressed – could over time diminish its programmatic effectiveness and lead to continued high turnover and limited organizational growth. First, there was insufficient clarity about the organization’s identity; SA needed to define long-term organization-wide goals to focus its work, shorter-term priorities aimed at achieving these goals, its core and supporting strategies, and clear measures of success. Secondly, SA’s internal management structure and systems, including the finance and human resources functions, had never been adjusted to account for the organization’s tripling in size over the previous four years.
COMPREHENSIVE ASSISTANCE
In partnership with SA’s Executive Director and senior managers, MAG designed and facilitated the following processes (all of which were designed to simultaneously increase the skills and confidence of the senior managers):
A MAG senior consultant was approached by the executive director of SA who had been strongly urged by a large funder to seek help in building a more diversified funding base, and was given a special grant to hire a consultant. She also wanted management training for senior managers. We decided together to begin with a fund-raising audit and recommendations (per the funder’s deadline), and then explore what was needed for management training.
ANALYSIS
MAG reviewed SA’s written program and organization materials and conducted confidential interviews with staff, Board members, funders, and colleagues in the field. Interview questions probed the organization’s program effectiveness, management efficiency, human resources and financial management, the role of the Board, and many issues related to fund-raising effectiveness and opportunities.
Interviewees cited SA repeatedly for the excellence of its work, the clarity of its purpose, the high quality and commitment of its staff, and the extraordinary leadership and credibility of its director. The organization was seen as having a big impact on its issues, as significant as any group MAG had ever worked with. At the same time, the interviews surfaced a number of serious internal problems. These included: high staff turnover, particularly among junior and newer staff; the organization saying yes to too many things; not enough communication and engagement across departments; lack of an organization-wide budget and regular financial reports for senior managers and Board members; unresolved conflicts among senior staff; over-dependence on the Executive Director to raise all the funds; and the absence of someone to run the organization during the Executive Director’s frequent and extended travel.
MAG concluded that it was only the extraordinary efforts of a handful of extremely competent, committed, and hardworking senior staff members that had masked the seriousness of these problems—forging ahead as they did and working around road blocks but that the situation was dangerous and unstable. MAG presented very specific recommendations—along with strategies and a road map for proceeding — for raising more money from foundations, businesses, and individual donors, and for generating earned income in several new ways. MAG also recommended that SA address two central issues that could prevent the fund-raising success of SA and also – if not addressed – could over time diminish its programmatic effectiveness and lead to continued high turnover and limited organizational growth. First, there was insufficient clarity about the organization’s identity; SA needed to define long-term organization-wide goals to focus its work, shorter-term priorities aimed at achieving these goals, its core and supporting strategies, and clear measures of success. Secondly, SA’s internal management structure and systems, including the finance and human resources functions, had never been adjusted to account for the organization’s tripling in size over the previous four years.
COMPREHENSIVE ASSISTANCE
In partnership with SA’s Executive Director and senior managers, MAG designed and facilitated the following processes (all of which were designed to simultaneously increase the skills and confidence of the senior managers):
- Strategic planning that resulted in the identification of: 10-year and 5-year outcome goals to focus SA’s work on measurable results; needed changes in management structure and staffing; a definition of the target population; and SA’s distinctive niche, operating values, and strategic approach.A review of management, staffing, and internal operations that:
- Engaged cross-functional teams in creating two-year priorities for each goal and integrated work plans that focused department activities on achieving those priorities
- Resulted in a reorganization of the staff to integrate functions and give senior-level managers clear authority and responsibility for defined areas
- Created a new senior management team to provide overall guidance and direction with the executive director and in her absence
- Prompted a financial audit that surfaced serious problems with the financial systems and resulted in a revamping of systems and the firing of the finance director
- Generated more inclusive staff meetings
- Resolved a long-standing problem between key senior staff
- Resulted in the hiring of a new
senior-level finance and administration
director to manage the management team, build
senior managers’ skills, develop next
generation leadership, and monitor the
accomplishment of strategic plan
goals.
- Development of staff and Board, including identifying new positions to fill out the revamped structure ( including a new director of development position), management training, and assessing needed upgrades to the Board of Directors to be more appropriate to SA’s increased size and complexity.
RESULTS
SA recently received
a $10 million, three-year general support grant
and told MAG: “they (the funder) were bowled over by
the strategic plan; every question they threw
at us was one our process had addressed (thanks
to you)…Separate and apart from the money,
though, we are very much on track for
implementing the plan, and the new structure
and processes are working well. All of us
believe that we owe you a lot for
that.”