Working for my Clients: The Year in Review

The leaders I work with, my clients, push hard each day to overcome tough organizational challenges, level up their strategy, and invest in their communities. The chance to help them is a privilege. My clients and I have been on this road together now a year.  They are champions, and as an earnest helper, I hope to join them for years to come.

Four great clients have invited me to assist and advise them in the past year, despite the uncertainty created after January for many organizations. From this work, I share five top takeaways:

1.         Clients want help facing tough challenges, starting new initiatives, and dealing with messy political and communications challenges. It’s been encouraging to see where clients want to go and assist as a guide. (rather than offering a report or leading a cookie-cutter planning session).

2.         Clients seem to be looking for a journey companion for this stage of their effort - a friend, a source of encouragement in the challenging world. I did not realize how helpful that could be to clients. We are all just human, after all.

3.         Letting new and prospective clients know about how we can work together is essential for  realizing client’s needs, and enjoyable to talk through as well.

4.         Clients who value original thinking, tough questions, and superior results are wonderful to work with, whereas RFPs are generally for large and established firms, where firm longevity is most important.

5.         My clients make my work a privilege, and I’m thankful for it daily. When leaders I work with improve outcomes in economic development social services, or funding strategies, it adds up over time to make all of our people’s lives better and more prosperous. Our republic and the idea that we can work together for a fair American dream matter.

One of the most personally rewarding projects of the last year was working with a client who is a long-time relationship, my client SERCAP, in facilitating them to think about their new housing social enterprises. In the context of federal funding cuts, they realized that they needed to level up their social enterprise game so that they could generate revenue while using their capabilities helping communities. In a facilitated strategy session listening to them discuss their potential directions, we were able to lift up priorities including consulting on community development projects, offering technical assistance on required housing compliance issues that aren’t going away, and the much-needed rehabilitation of affordable properties in smaller communities around Virginia.

The SERCAP team appreciated The Lean Startup methodology that I brought to them as they considered essential revenue generation. This methodology makes use of experimentation toward a “minimum viable product” to quickly match the needs of communities they are serving. SERCAP is excited about their future prospects and feels transformed by rising to the challenge of deploying these enterprises. With new Director of Housing and Development Evangeline Richie joining and serving under longtime CEO Hope Cupit, this is a story to watch, and I’m excited to cheer on their success as a stronger and more impactful organization in this new chapter.

Another client developing a different kind of project is a smaller, more locally-focused organization. This community foundation with an experienced leader and resources to make a big impact in their region wanted to figure out how to address a difficult commuity problem. Yet they run with few staff, in order to maximize empowering community organizations. I joined as a strategic advisor and helped guide several junior temporary staff in carrying out and structuring research questions around their initiative. With this information, local government leaders and foundation boardmembers are able to decide on their priorities and build the forward momentum that will make life-changing community improvements.

With these clients, they are finding an larger essential truth for the most successful organizations: the courage at all levels of leadership to try new activities. It is rewarding to see clients want to learn and not be mired in turf wars or worry about new activities as a threat. That is not to say that change is not hard; it’s a balance, and it’s important bring everyone along in an inclusive way. Yet when leaders can conquer the doubts and insecurities to prudently try a new activity, they can reach alpine heights. And, at the end of the day, the communities and the people they serve will be the ones that benefit from their willingness to engage.

So these leaders are changing their communities, and really they’re changing themselves. They’re exercising these muscles to explore how they can do things better and smarter. They are heroes who are growing in their own capabilities, and I am glad to ride alongside supporting for a time.