About

Problem
This nonprofit is the community’s premier provider of domestic violence services, yet the organization’s infrastructure had gotten so thin (weak) that the CEO was spending more time worrying about leaks in the office roof than she was crafting a vision for the future. As with many organizations in the nonprofit sector, traditional funding sources and amounts of funding had been declining, particularly government contracts. Yet despite these pressures, year after year, the organization carefully managed its budget so that it always broke even. To do this, however, resulted in minimal investment in the infrastructure of the organization; no salary increases, limited training, inability to pay market-based salaries for replacement staff, making do with second hand computers, etc. Before they knew it, staff was exhausted, the board was doing what operations used to do and no one was looking towards the future. It was all they could do to make sure they serviced their clients each day.

Solution
Market Strategies Group worked with the organization’s Executive Team to determine what options were available for developing a more robust infrastructure to return a quality of life to personnel and to increase the quality of service delivery. We looked at a variety of options from shrinking the organization to growing the organization—all with the goal of ending up with an organization that had a “quality of life” for personnel and the ability to increase the quality of the services provided to the community.

The growth option was selected and approved and a strategic plan was developed to grow the organization. The plan called for investing in building capacity and finding the revenue sources to ultimately pay for the improved infrastructure. To manage the risk, Market Strategies Group help the organization develop specific milestones and accountability measures.

Results
The organization is now implementing the plan starting with hiring development staff and having all personnel adopt annual objectives based on the strategies and goals in the plan. Execution of the plan will be in carefully defined phases so that the organization can make sure its various investments pay off before adding additional risk. The roof, by the way, got fixed.