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National
Reach is a prestigious and venerable U.S.
advocacy organization. MAG designed a
customized capacity-building program to help
this organization harness the power its 50
state affiliates.
In her first few
months at the helm of National Reach, the
Executive Director recognized a potentially
powerful but unevenly developed asset: the
group’s 50-member network of state-based
affiliates. While each affiliate had at
least one paid staff person, half of the
affiliates were strong and financially
independent from the national organization, and
the other half were less well-developed and
were subsidized by headquarters. These
smaller groups were typically located in the
most challenging states, and managed
overwhelming workloads with small staffs and
smaller donor lists.
The new executive
asked the Management Assistance Group to help
her build the capacity of these small
affiliates to lead critical efforts in their
states, support their participation in
nationwide strategies, and strengthen the
relationship between the national organization
and these groups.
ANALYSIS
In surveys and
interviews, affiliate directors expressed needs
for assistance in: setting and sticking to
priorities, clarifying the roles of the
Affiliate Director and Board of Directors,
enhancing the Board/staff relationship, and
strengthening the Board’s composition. In MAG’s
view, these challenges often came together to
create a common pattern—directors who were
besieged with requests and understaffed, and
trapped in a constant state of reaction.
They struggled, usually unsuccessfully, to find
the time to build the strength of their
affiliates.
CUSTOMIZED
ASSISTANCE
To begin to address these
key issues, MAG designed a two-day intensive
session for affiliate directors. Through
this session, MAG helped affiliate directors to
see the pattern that kept them in a reactive
mode and identify ways to deal with it.
These included ways to lead staff, volunteers,
and the board more productively, how to set
their own priorities instead of letting them be
shaped by events of the day, and how to target
resources to increase effectiveness even
if funding did not dramatically
increase.
In evaluating the workshop,
some typical participant comments
were:
“The workshop was
invaluable for me in the area of ‘new ideas for
old problems.’ I found myself,
for the FIRST time, doing a
self-evaluation and realizing I DID have the
ability to change the direction of my board of
directors.”
“I got a new way of thinking. I am
conscious that every choice is a decision on
priorities. I will immediately start getting
the priority setting process
rolling.”
“You gave me very specific solutions to
management, board, and administrative
problems/kinks.”
To build on this progress, MAG
worked with a small planning group of affiliate
directors to design the program’s second phase,
which ended up with three main
elements:
(1) Workshop on Role of Board and
Relationship to Staff. The planning team
recognized that affiliate directors could not
transform their boards alone, so board members
were invited to participate in a two-day
workshop that clarified and deepened their
understanding of the most appropriate and
critical roles and contributions of a
board. Because many small affiliates had
only two or three staff members, they relied
heavily on board members to function as
volunteer staffers. This led to a great
deal of confusion about who was in charge in
those situations, the staff or the board member
acting as a volunteer. Board members came
away from the workshop clear that when they
operated as staffers, they worked for the
executive director, but when they functioned
together as a governance body, they were in
charge. Participants in the workshop made
the following observations on its
value:
“We thought we had a great affiliate
because we had a great executive director but
we didn’t see our board as adding value.
I now see the contribution a strong active
board can make to building a great
affiliate.”
“I gained a better
conscious understanding of the roles of the
board and areas of responsibility of the
executive director and can clearly distinguish
the governance and volunteer roles of the
board. I learned the importance of involving
the board in developing a long-range plan, and
bettering our recruitment of board
members.”
(2) Managing People
Workshop. To further strengthen
the leadership and management of affiliate
executive directors, MAG designed a two-day
session that focused on improving their ability
to effectively manage staff, both employee and
volunteer. They learned how to delegate,
how to adjust their management style to fit
different situations and diverse employees, how
to make more discerning selections of new
staff, and how to deal with problem
employees. In evaluating the workshop,
participants reported:
“I realize that my
management style reflects the way I like to be
managed and that it’s not the right style for
everyone on my staff.”
“I understand more
clearly how to bring out the best in people and
how to empower them to fulfill their
responsibilities.
(3) On-site Consultation.
For affiliates with complex challenges, or
those poised to dramatically increase their
impact, MAG provided customized onsite
assistance. For these organizations, MAG
(a) conducted a brief but intensive diagnostic
study of the affiliate to identify core issues
and barriers to success, and (b) traveled to
the affiliate to share its findings and work
with staff and board members to generate plans
for addressing and resolving key
issues.
CONCLUSION AND LONG-TERM
IMPACT
Over three years, MAG worked
with 19 affiliates of the national
organization, and delivered to them the
following benefits:
- Encouraged Affiliate Directors to think in new ways about their leadership and their ability to catalyze change.
- Enabled affiliates to reposition themselves and their work, shifting from reactive firefighting to the proactive, pursuit of carefully chosen goals. Many affiliates developed and implemented proactive state-wide strategies and built their organization’s capacity to support these goals.
- Clarified the most effective roles affiliate Boards can play, and enhanced the board/staff relationship.
The impacts of the work also stretched
beyond the boundaries of these 19 affiliates to
impact the national organization and to provide
a model useful elsewhere in the non-profit
advocacy field.
- The program allowed the national organization to “put its money where its mouth is” and demonstrate its commitment to strengthening its affiliates. The momentum generated by MAG’s work helped to facilitate the development of a highly effective affiliate support department at the national organization.
- Generated a powerful model through which an external consultant can support a national organization and its network of affiliates. The hallmarks of the model MAG developed include:
- Strong involvement by the national organization
- Carefully delineated and transparent confidentiality agreements
- Substantial input by affiliates
- A mixture of individualized assistance and
group workshops
These approaches can kick-start or supplement the work of internal affiliate support departments and are greatly needed by the many nonprofit advocacy organizations that are striving to make their national-affiliate structures more powerful and dynamic.