The Organization:
After funding $8 million and delivering 900 coaching engagements under the McConnell Foundation over 12 years, the flagship nonprofit capacity building program, Innoweave, was moving to a new home at the MakeWay Foundation.
The Assignment:
While aligning with McConnell values and priorities, MakeWay saw an opportunity for Innoweave to not just transition but transform for even greater impact. This needed a plan. Lynn was engaged to align the perspectives, values, and strategies of the two foundations to prepare for this change.
Overall Outcomes:
Like so many of Lynn’s consulting engagements, with her guidance, the team gained a deeper understanding of the issue they aimed to address and the barriers to success. They are working with a draft specific, measurable, social impact stretch-goal and necessary plan to direct and communicate their work. Overall, they gained a model for impact-focused strategic clarity and alignment to make a meaningful difference.
Outcome #1:
Like many new initiatives, the initial challenge was to take a big idea and align diverse views on the objective and scope of the work, and then design an approach to achieving it. To work through this, Lynn supported creation of a draft intended impact statement, describing the desired outcome of Innoweave in its new home, and a draft Theory of Change, describing the strategies and activities to be undertaken to achieve that result.
Outcome #2
In getting to a place of alignment, Lynn supported the MakeWay-McConnell team in developing the principles and values that would guide the new Innoweave. This raised some important questions, clarifying where the two funders were already on the same page, and identifying opportunities to align differences in organizational culture and priorities.
Outcome #3
A transformational change initiative spends a lot of time in the messy stage, where so much is possible yet uncertain. Lynn supported the team in creating a 5-stage roadmap for the transition, aligning people internally on the scope and approach, and providing a way of communicating at a high level the process that was being undertaken. It provided greater certainty and stability, showed the path forward, enabled timelines to be created, and identified opportunities for stakeholders to participate. This provided clarity and buy-in to the process and allowed people to engage and move forward.
Find Out More:
Now at MakeWay, Innoweave and the community/nonprofit capacity strengthening work overall at the Foundation continue to evolve. Read more about the move here: Innoweave moves to MakeWay to grow, transform, and support capacity strengthening across the nonprofit and charitable sector.
Testimonial:
"Lynn's breadth of experience comes with the agility to support the client with useful frameworks that help navigate times of adaptation and transition. This helped us situate our goals and where we were at in a long transition journey."
Natalie Chapdelaine, Senior Manager, Capacity Strengthening, MakeWay