The board and staff of a regional community foundation efficiently arrived at consensus about a strategy and priorities for growth based on new insights about both their business model and their organization’s capacity to achieve its mission.  

When this community foundation significantly exceeded its financial goals for growth over a three-year period, the board was ready to “update the plan.” Based upon a thoughtful review of the current plan and metrics, Strategies for Change Now guided a deep dive into analyzing their portfolio of funds and the relative costs associated with providing services to donors at different levels. Simultaneously, this analysis was linked to emerging knowledge and best practices of similar community foundations across the country.  This fresh way of looking at their business served as a springboard for the board and staff as a whole to identify and talk about the tensions between financial sustainability and mission that they needed to proactively manage. As a result, they were able to arrive relatively quickly at consensus about a nuanced strategy for continued growth that balanced total fund growth with targeted marketing to build donor investments in specific funds and increase mission impact.