Child And Family Services:
This profile shares the challenge that HELP USA faced and the actions it took to fund its growth strategy.
Civic Engagement:
Balancing Mission and Margin
VolunteerMatch, a provider of online services supporting civic engagement, had developed two revenue-generating business units. Now the management team was considering more. But neither unit was generating a positive contribution, and many on the staff feared that new earned-income ventures might make the organization too commercial and profit-driven.
VolunteerMatch, along with The Bridgespan Group, evaluated how to improve performance of the existing business units, and which potential new ventures would contribute without compromising the organization’s mission.
Civil Rights:
Using Strategic Planning to Increase the Impact of Advocacy
To further affect positive change in the criminal justice system, The Justice Project engaged in a strategic planning process to clarify the opportunities the organization should pursue. With the help of The Bridgespan Group, The Justice Project set clear goals and developed a set of criteria to use in evaluating opportunities to set the right balance for its future work.
Unleashing the Power of an Affiliate Base
President and CEO Janet Murguía and her management team joined forces with The Bridgespan Group to help pave the way for the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) to maximize its impact on the lives of people in the Latino community. The Council and The Bridgespan Group translated NCLR’s long-term vision of Hispanic American equality into nearer-term goals and clarified the give/get requirements for a relationship between affiliates and the national office that would allow them to do their work most effectively.
Community Development:
Making Opportunity Knock, A Strategy for Transforming San Francisco's Southeastern Neighborhood
An influx of investment presented a predicament for the neighborhoods of southeastern San Francisco: Would the new money buoy the residents of this poverty-ridden area, or would it squeeze them out? To address this concern, the Communities of Opportunity (COO) was formed as a collaboration of city agencies, private philanthropists, community organizations and the residents themselves to help define and shape the goals of revitalizing the community. Along with help from The Bridgespan Group, they developed clear goals, a strategy for change, and an effective approach for working together.
Measuring for Mission
To secure funding to add new programs, performance measurement became paramount for the Great Valley Center (GVC), a community-based organization devoted to the economic, social and environmental well being of California’s Great Central Valley. Working with The Bridgespan Group, Carol Whiteside, GVC’s president, constructed a new performance management system that met her management team’s need to have a simple, systematic way to the organization’s impact and a way to share results with stakeholders.
Global Development:
How much to centralize—or decentralize—decision making and operations has puzzled global organizations for centuries. Studies of for-profits show that the best answer can be different at different points in an organization’s growth. But few studies exist for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). This article, based on what we’ve learned through case work and interviews with leaders and staff of global NGOs, seeks to help NGO networks better determine—and anticipate—when their organizations' approach to operations and decision making needs revision. Our findings illuminate an emerging approach that blends the best of efficiencies at an organization’s center and local innovation in the field.
Global Development Profiles
Human Services:
These profiles share the challenge the organizations faced and the actions they took to help fund their growth strategies.
Public Health:
Widening the Net for Medicare Drug Benefits
In an effort to enroll the greatest number of low-income seniors in a new government drug program, the National Council on Aging (NCOA), a nonprofit organization dedicated to enhancing the health and independence of older persons, teamed with the Bridgespan Group to develop a plan for maximizing enrollment.
Sharpening a Foundation's Grantmaking without Limiting its Mission
The California Endowment was created with a broad charge: Improve the health of all California residents and also improve access to healthcare for underserved populations in the state. In 2006, with the help of The Bridgespan Group, they set out to develop a 10-year strategic plan to determine how they could stay true to the broad values of the organization’s mission while being increasingly purposeful about its activities to ensure the greatest possible impact.