Most nonprofits face perplexing
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Challenge Spotlight
Does this describe your nonprofit or foundation?
No talent pipeline to fill leadership positions
Meet Our Team
strategy to maximize mission results
challenges effectively implementing
AchieveMission is the only nonprofit consulting firm that brings together experience
in the nonprofit sector, talent and performance management and technology
How can we make sure our strategy is implemented effectively?
If you believe that you have the right strategy but it has failed to deliver promised results, you are not alone. We frequently see a gap between promised strategic outcomes and actual results. Did you know that studies suggest that as much as 85% of your mission results derive from effective implementation and only 15% from the strategy? As a result, at many nonprofits, promised mission results are not achieved.
How can we meet increasing social needs with limited resources?
Many nonprofits have been forced to cut staff even as needs for services have grown rapidly. Necessary changes to organizational structure and roles may cause confusion about who does what, who has the authority to make decisions, and who will take on the work done by those laid off. Priorities will almost certainly be shifting as well, increasing the risk that staff will find—often after substantial work has already been done— that their projects have been shut down. When resources are limited it is even more critical to focus everyone’s time and attention to the highest priorities, assign the right goals and communicate effectively across the entire organization.
How can we rally the organization to make needed changes?
New leaders can bring exciting new energies and promising new directions, new priorities, and often a renewed focus on impact and effective execution. Steering your organization through this change can bump up against ingrained ways of working, and clash with established formal or informal leaders. And when leadership changes come unexpectedly, transitions can additionally cause talent gaps and confusion. Especially during transitions, staff need to come to work every day knowing how they can best help the organization achieve its strategic goals.
How can we anticipate and address obstacles to planned growth?
Scaling your organization brings excitement and new complexity. Your breadth of services may be expanding, adding new layers to your strategic and operating plans. A growing team expands your communications needs exponentially. Roles become more specialized, making it harder for people to see the big picture. Departments gain new structure, leading to silos and frustrating conflicts between teams. New locations may struggle to produce expected results and diverging interests may lead to competing priorities. New hires struggle to keep up and growing internal talent becomes a more urgent need. Anticipating and adapting successfully as you grow requires adding infrastructure and appropriate processes to keep everyone on track and motivated.
How can we determine if technology will help us better execute our strategy?
You’ve noticed that a growing number of high performing nonprofits are using talent and performance management software to optimize performance and increase mission impact. But taking this step alone can be daunting. There are more than 40 vendor options and none are designed to meet the unique needs of nonprofits. Your existing performance and talent management processes are not necessarily the ones you want to institutionalize and automate. And even if you make the up front investments to change those processes and then appropriately configure the right software, you still need to work with your entire team to ensure deep adoption and appropriate use. It comes as no surprise that many organizations take years to reap the huge potential benefits of this technology investment.
Next Steps
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Learn About our Growing Team
ADVISORY BOARD: Ed Newman was Founder & CEO of the Newman Group, now part of Korn Ferry, where he provided talent managment consulting to a third of the Fortune 500.
STAFF: Joanne Rencher, Consultant. Fomerly, Chief People Officer, American Red Cross, NY
ADVISORY BOARD: James Baron, Professor of Management, Yale School of Management, co-author Strategic Human Resources: Frameworks for General Managers
Mike Markovits
Partner
succession at IBM and earlier held a similar position at GE. He started his career in the public benefit sector.
Mike led global leadership development, talent management and
Download the NEW Spring 2013 Talent Initiative RFP
