Posts Tagged ‘Strategic Thinking’
Posted by Gayle Gifford on March 1, 2010 in Effectiveness, Strategic Thinking
I’m organizing a workshop for later this month for the Grantmakers Council of RI called “How Grantmakers can Help Nonprofits Survive and Emerge Stronger in 2010.”
The workshop will focus on how this climate presents unique opportunities for this sector to become more intentional about strengthening the nonprofit and philanthropic infrastructure.
As a few of the grantmakers have been overly focused on mergers as the solution in these tough economic times, the discussion will highlight other opportunities shy of merger for collaboration and consolidation of management services.
Last Thursday I was chatting with a consultant colleague whom I’ve recruited to be on the panel. She was recounting her own work facilitating mergers and how these experiences have left her convinced that mergers are often not worth the time and expense that goes into them. She was pointing out that mergers usually require costly consultation and legal services and amazing amounts of time and energy from the staff and Read More >>
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on March 14, 2009 in Nonprofit Highlights, Strategic Thinking
CDCs rock! Many of these community benefit nonprofits take big risks to create healthy, safe, affordable homes and rebuild neighborhoods. You can read more about the history and work of CDCs in Comeback Cities, by Paul Grogan now the CEO of The Boston Foundation.
When CDCs work well, they demonstrate what is right with this sector. They are embedded in community, asking questions, responding to need, engaging residents. They exemplify the word partnership, making change happen through a complicated set of relationships
and interactions with national powerhouses like Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) and NeighborWorks(R) America, local for-profit lenders, public planning departments, sister organizations, community members, local public servants like the police, and more.
I’m in awe of their knowledge, commitment and ability to make big change happen.
I’m singing the praises of CDCs coming off five hours yesterday facilitating a strategic planning retreat with the Board and staff of Community Works Rhode Island, an affiliate of NeighborWorks America.
Staff and board committees have been meeting and thinking over the last few months and this was an opportunity to come together and synthesize the work that has been done to date. For me, it is always a pleasure to work with caring, really smart, fun and engaged boards and staff, so thank you.
And WOW for their commitment — meeting together on a Friday afternoon till 8:00 in the evening. (I don’t know about you, but I do my best to avoid work on Friday nights).
There are a still a few more details before the plan is finished, but this organization already knows how to think and act strategically which is what ultimately matters.
Did I mention Community Work’s commitment to change that transforms communities? That word, transform, is in their mission statement and they take it seriously.
What’s as impressive is that this organization is the child of a recent merger between the Elmwood Foundation and Greater Elmwood Neighborhood Services. Based in the Elmwood neighborhood of Providence, both CDCs have worked in Providence’s Southside for more than 30 years, creating close to 1,000 units of affordable housing and investing more than $60 million in the community. Kudos once again to my friend and colleague MJ Kaplan of Kaplan Consulting LLC for guiding these groups through the merger and for lining up a really stellar board.
Next for me, typing up those flip charts (not my favorite task) and merging all the details on paper into a written framework that reflects all the smart and truly strategic thinking that went on last night. Then guiding this phase of planning to its conclusion.
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on March 4, 2009 in Big ideas, Great quotes, Strategic Thinking
“Manage cautiously but think ambitiously” I scribbled in my notebook. Those well spoken words were shared by Jeremy Nowak, a nationally recognized leader in urban development and the CEO of The Reinvestment Fund, who was the guest speaker at the first annual Senator Claiborne Pell Lecture on Arts & Humanities hosted by the City of Providence.
Mr. Nowak’s talk focused on the role of arts and culture in redefining and revitalizing cities. As part of its effort to capitalize on this enormous local asset by rebranding as “The Creative Capital”, Providence has recently launched a community planning effort called “Creative Providence: A Cultural Plan for the Creative Sector.”
Throughout his talk, Mr. Nowak wove an exciting and hopeful thread for a bold reimagining even as we experience the grim unraveling of an economic tapestry based on debt.
Using Philadelphia as an example (he hadn’t toured Providence yet) Mr. Nowak offered a number of illuminating examples of how artists and creative sector entrepreneurs, using an appreciative approach, “uncover, express and repurpose assets.” Two examples included resuing heavy industrial mill buildings for creative industrial workspace or reclaiming vacant lots for a sculpture park that helped redefine neighborhood. The question posed to the room was how that ability of artists to see can be harnessed to truly reinvent cities that are searching for new identities and economic models.
In thinking about the many interesting concepts presented last night, I woke up this morning thinking again that this third sector of ours needs to stop apologizing for the way it works and stop idealizing some fictitious “smarter than us” for-profit business and leadership model. Instead, we need to reclaim and boldly proclaim our unique way of seeing based on quality of life, a belief in public service and a philanthropic compass to guide our action. It’s time to take the high ground for the what, the why and the how of the work we do.
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on February 6, 2009 in 100 Things We've Learned, Big ideas, Strategic Thinking
“Your course ‘Public Humanities Institutions: A Systems Perspective’ was unlike any other class that I have ever taken in my academic career… Now that my first semester of graduate school is coming to an end, I am realizing how I have started to apply the idea of “systems” to every aspect of my life…
“The idea that no person or organization is a stand-alone entity seems rather obvious. However, the extent to which a person is connected in a system can be much greater than one thinks. This was definitely one of the most important things I learned early on in this course. It is now something that I think about often…”
— Reina
As a teacher, it is always incredibly rewarding to hear back from a student that they have found meaning and value in your courses. I always learn from my students — which is why I enjoy teaching (despite all those papers I have to review).
Poet John Donne may have coined the words “No man is an island, entire of itself” more than a half millenium ago, but I interact with too many nonprofit board members who haven’t discovered the power of systems thinking that Reina experienced in just a few weeks. Read More >>
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on November 13, 2008 in Big ideas, Public engagement, Strategic Thinking
Paul Schmitz of Public Allies offers a great overview of what nonprofits can learn from the Obama campaign in his article in NonProfit Quarterly. Paul cites five key attributes nonprofits can emulate: A powerful brand. A clear, measurable strategy.? Disciplined management. Face-to-face and online organizing. Youth leadership.
In my view, the most unexpected of these factors is the success (and recognition) of old- and new-fashioned community organizing. And this, I think, is where nonprofits badly need to pay attention. Read More >>
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on August 21, 2008 in Big ideas, Good reads, Strategic Thinking
Writing about Peter Block yesterday makes me think about his book, The Answer to How is Yes. I’ve been using this title as a guiding agreement for strategic planning that I facilitate with clients.
Block argues, and I agree, that “How?” isn’t the most important question. “How?” is a distraction from the important question “What resistance am I postponing?” or, in other words, “What am I really willing to commit to and act upon?”
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on August 11, 2008 in Great quotes, Strategic Thinking
Today’s quote comes from Frances Perkins, who was Secretary of Labor under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and was the 1st woman to hold a US cabinet post.? 
I frequently share this quote with teams that are about to embark on strategic planning as I believe it captures the essence of the planning process.
“Most of our problems upon this planet … Have been met and solved either partially or as a whole by experiment based on common sense and carried out with courage.”
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