In 2006, MAG worked with the National Youth Employment Coalition, a Washington-based non-profit that works  across the fields of youth development, workforce development, and education. NYEC  contracted with MAG to focus on three areas: leadership transition, board relations, and board-staff communication. NYEC also had a framework in place for growing its capacity, but implementation still seemed distant.

After six months of close collaboration with MAG, NYEC saw a sea change in how board members communicated with each other and with the staff – a key factor in moving forward.

“There’s been a culture shift in our board since we started working with MAG,” says Mala Thakur, Executive Director of NYEC. In the short term, MAG helped her organization make time outside of regular board meetings to focus on communication and to identify the balance between some core businesses in NYEC’s organizational framework. Over the long term, Thakur says, “MAG helped NYEC to focus on the issues that we needed to address collectively. ”

Executive Director Inca Mohamed was lead consultant on this project, and Thakur attributes the success of the NYEC/MAG collaboration to several factors: Mohamed’s familiarity with the playing fields of youth and workforce development, and her open, approachable style. “She helped us to tease out what the key points were and to identify plans for next steps easily. It felt like we were partners.”

Now that NYEC has worked closely with MAG, the organization benefits from dramatically improved communications. It's able to do more of what it’s designed to do: Improve the effectiveness of organizations that support youth  development , workforce development and education.

“When we started to look at how we wanted to change, working with MAG was instrumental,” says Thakur.