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Transforming a Charitable Bank into a Leader of Social Change

The Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo (the Foundation) is expert at building capacity in its community. For more than ninety years, it has managed endowment funds for individuals, families, and organizations. Today it’s home to over 750 named funds, with $300M in total assets, and $12M in annual giving. In the period from 2007 to 2013, the Foundation experienced exponential growth as a result of an ambitious strategic plan to deepen the organization's capacity to lead social change and maximize its growth potential in terms of assets, partnerships, and programs.

Like many organizations, the Foundation had developed a great strategy for success, but needed help building the operational capacity to take it to the next level. The Foundation chose the Crossland Group to help align and allocate its staff, and design an organization that could execute its strategy and continue to drive meaningful impact and grow charitable assets. The Foundation’s new roles in the community required new internal capacity, including processes for cross-functional teamwork to address objectives beyond day-to-day operations. In one instance, staff members who were focused on community impact were spending 50 percent of their time on data entry and other infrastructure needs. We worked with the Foundation to separate roles, build the operation team’s competencies, and free up staff to focus on the work that was most valuable to their functions. In order to build internal capacity for re-assessing and re-aligning staff on an ongoing basis, we went beyond creating a static plan to address the current state. Instead, we developed processes to continually assess functional needs and gaps and support continued growth.

 

 

 

Twenty-One Competencies Identified, Mapped, and Developed

 

By the end of the Crossland Group’s engagement, twenty-one competencies were identified, mapped, and developed to fulfill the Foundation’s new roles in the community. Additionally, a new discipline and methodology were created for managing cross-functional projects. Crossland also realigned all job descriptions and performance management processes to reinforce and build capability around the twenty-one competencies. It did this in a way that engaged people at all levels of the organization to help them understand their roles in implementing the strategy. As a result of the implementation plan, the new organizational functions across the Foundation are already working more collaboratively. As one board member explained, “We got much more out of this than we asked for. We have a very clear roadmap and understand where there are needs and gaps. We’re going to be a much stronger organization as a result.”

More Success Stories

Photo Credit: Kevin Dooley

Source: Pete Lewis/Department for International Development

Photo Credit: Pete Lewis/DFID

Photo credit: Mariana Ceratti / World Bank

© 2016 The Crossland Group

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