Our Services

Strategic planning

Boards and leaders of nonprofit organizations all over the country let out a collective shudder when someone brings up the idea of strategic planning, but it doesn't need to be that way. Simply put, strategic planning is the process of developing a blueprint for achieving your organization's goals. It helps the organization stay focused, and provides a way to track progress and measure success. It can also help nonprofit organizations be competitive for grants and other fundraising opportunities.

Nonprofit organizations know they should regularly draft or update strategic plans—particularly in volatile or uncertain periods—but many dread a process that leaves the group spinning in circles. To avoid becoming overwhelmed at the thought of developing or updating a strategic plan, you need a facilitator to lead participants through calculated steps. The result will be broad goals and objectives, and possibly more importantly, an action plan that teams can implement.

To develop or update strategic plans, Blue Feather consultants use a technique called Compression Planning to energize the Board and engage staff members. Compression Planning is a facilitation approach that helps a group of people brainstorm solutions and prioritize the best ideas. At the end, the group agrees to an action plan that articulates next steps, responsible parties, and estimated deadlines. Our certified facilitators have successfully used this technique in both strategic planning and developing communication plans. It consistently delivers results in a compressed time with an action plan ready to be implemented.

This process helps leaders and key stakeholders leverage their collaborative time, so they make better decisions faster—which leaves more time for strategic thinking and better results. Each session is uniquely designed to guide participants to work collaboratively and compresses the planning time to enable your organization to achieve the results you need. Imagine developing a strategic plan with action items in as little as four hours. Yes, you heard right—four hours!

Organizational effectiveness

Sometimes a nonprofit organization needs someone from the outside to help them assess what they can be doing better. We can examine current operations and suggest changes that can help the organization achieve its strategic objectives. Some of the common results of organizational effectiveness work include:

• New human resources policies or processes
• Communications (both internal and external) strategies
• Operational process changes
• Change management strategies

Leadership coaching

Leadership coaching helps individuals align behaviors with personal aspirations, life philosophy, and motives. Organizations see benefits through improved individual performance and career path alignment. Our coaching model is designed to achieve sustained, desired change by coaching with compassion and mindfulness. It requires commitment and the timeline is based on the level of support for the change. All coaching sessions are confidential though the individual may be asked to share his or her learning agenda with trusted advisors at the organization. Throughout the coaching experience, the focus will remain on sustainability. Our leadership coaching model is based on Intentional Change Theory as researched by the faculty of Case Western Reserve University.

Each participant is led by a trained coach through six different phases of the process:

• Gather Background. It's important that the coach and the participant establish trust during this first step. We even ask that the participant review and acknowledge the roles and responsibilities during the process.
• Explore your Ideal Self. Articulating our passions, identifying our dreams, and finding our noble purpose in life creates the motivation for sustained change. Participants will pursue all these ideas through a series of exercises and questionnaires.
• Discover your Real Self. Using a 360˚ assessment tool, participants will understand how they view themselves and how others see them.
• Develop your Learning Agenda. Using the strengths identified in previous phases, we will create a learning agenda that defines the steps necessary to see substantial change.
• Experiment with New Behaviors. Taking time to assess progress will be important on the coaching journey. If a participant gets stuck in old patterns, we can examine those behaviors and take steps for calibration and correction.
• Create a Plan for Sustainability. To ensure the journey continues after the coaching sessions, the participant will be guided through ways to create resonant relationships.

Communications

Many nonprofit organizations become frustrated with communications because it feels like they are shouting into a sea of messages and channels. It's easy to drown in the details of putting together content, posting on social media, and drafting thank you messages, and then lose sight of the bigger strategic communication picture.

Developing a communication strategy helps improve effectiveness by aligning goals and content. It will help you reach the right target audience with your messages. A communication strategy can also help organizational leaders show their Boards that they understand the important role communications play in developing a donor base and improving community awareness. There are a number of ways to build a strong communication plan, but the key areas to be covered include:

• Communication objectives
• Target audiences
• Key messages
• Communication channels
• Timing

We also understand the time and effort it takes to develop and write external communications that people want to read. It's hard to "write short" and be engaging when your daily organizational duties are swirling around you. Our consultants are available to support your communication needs by writing content—for websites, brochures, press releases, emails, or anything else you might need.

Board development

Highly effective Boards require planning and recruiting for skills that the organization needs to deliver on its mission. Nonprofit organizations often begin with a small Board that has a passion for the mission. To reach the next level of outreach and necessary resources, many nonprofits will be faced with the challenges of expanding their Boards and recruiting talented individuals with a wide variety of skills. To support this effort, Blue Feather consultants have:

• Created documents that contain responsibilities and skills required for each organizational leadership position
• Created documents that contain responsibilities and skills required for each Standing Committee of the Board
• Created job descriptions for members of the Board of Directors
• Provided recommendations for revisions to the organizational bylaws
• Supported advertising for Board member applicants
• Supported selection of new Board members by reviewing initial resumes, tracking activity, communicating with the current Board on required actions, preparing interview questions, and participating in the interview process
• Prepared onboarding materials for each new Board member
• Conducted training with Board members on general roles and responsibilities, along with specialized topics

Performance management

Performance management is an ongoing process of communication between a manager and an employee that occurs throughout the year. It includes clarifying expectations, setting objectives, identifying goals, providing feedback, and reviewing results. A strong performance management process can help an organization connect its strategic objectives to the daily work of leaders and staff. The process is a tool to help leaders guide employees as they work to improve performance and develop individual careers.

Nonprofit organizations often create a Steering Committee that will work directly with the Blue Feather consultants to design or improve the performance management process. Common steps in this process include:

• Reviewing documentation relating to the current performance management process and any incentive plans.
• Interviewing key leaders (which may include Board members) to gather input on the vision for performance management at the organization.
• Conducting focus groups to gather feedback from employees and managers about the current performance management system, or the vision for the process, along with best practices.
• Facilitating Steering Committee meetings which often includes:
  • Surveying the committee members to define objectives.
  • Facilitating working sessions to determine what components will be included in the process and to review best practices.
  • Determining the new process, developing new tools, and creating implementation plans for the new process.
  • Discussing how technology should support the process.

Executive Director transition

Even just the thought of replacing an Executive Director causes stress and anxiety. This top role affects the strategic direction, community reputation, and culture of the organization. More importantly, the transition creates an opportunity to define the role based on the organization's future vision. Having support during this important change could make the difference in the ongoing success of a nonprofit organization. There are typically four phases in the process and Blue Feather consultants can help your nonprofit organization's Search Committee by providing all or some of the following services in each phase.

• Phase 1: Defining the Role

  • Interview a selection of Board members, staff, and the current or interim Executive Director to understand the strategy of the organization and the requirements for the leader
  • Draft the job description and job posting based on the interviews
  • Draft speaking points for the Board of Directors (so they know how to discuss and promote the role)

• Phase 2: Recruitment and Selection Project Management

  • Draft a flow chart for the interview and selection process (that defines responsibilities)
  • Draft a communication plan to identify stakeholders and key messages about the new Executive Director
  • Advise on sourcing options to post the opening and network for qualified candidates
  • Facilitate Search Committee meetings by developing agendas, tracking open items, and developing reports to identify qualified candidates

• Phase 3: Interview Support

  • Develop interview questions for the initial screening
  • Draft the questions and a guide for first round interviews
  • Provide rating worksheets to assist in the selection process
  • Facilitate first round interviews to ensure the Search Committee follows the scripted interview guide
  • Facilitate a debrief session to select finalist candidate(s)
  • Develop guides and the schedule for the final candidate interview process

• Phase 4: Transition Plan Development

  • Draft a communication plan to identify stakeholders and key messages about the new Executive Director
  • Meet with the interim or transitioning Executive Director to develop a timeline for the transition of duties based on the job description
  • Develop a transition readiness assessment for the Board which includes recommendations for future implementation on standard operating procedure documentation or document accessibility

Succession plan development

Leadership plays an essential role in the success of a nonprofit organization and a change in executive leadership is as inevitable as the passing of time. It is an important responsibility of the Board and the executive leadership to prepare the organization for a smooth transition in leadership, whether planned or unplanned, temporary or permanent.

The Board of Directors and the organization's Executive Director should develop a plan detailing the actions that should be taken to facilitate a smooth transition to a new Executive Director. This can be done by training individuals whom the Executive Director believes are suitable candidates for the position. Alternatively, if there is no one in the organization fitting this description at the time of transition, the Board and leadership must establish the circumstances and environment for finding a suitable replacement.

A succession plan forms a framework to assist the Board and staff to be as prepared as possible for the worst-case scenario, which would be an unplanned or temporary leadership change, in order to minimize turmoil, confusion, and stress that can accompany such events. It also contains guidance for how a planned transition would work, including the roles and process for a Search Committee. In addition to drafting and editing the plan, Blue Feather consultants will work with the Board and make presentations to have the plan approved.