After helping the Alliance weather economic downturn, Stephen Mack assumes new role as board chair
Call it being in the right place at the right time. In 2007, just before the economic recession fully took root, the Alliance for Children and Families Board of Directors elected Stephen Mack as treasurer of the full board and chair of the finance committee.
As treasurer, he helped ensure that the Alliance weathered these economic challenges. As with most nonprofit organizations, this required ongoing detailed review of the organization’s budget, difficult financial decisions, and cutbacks.
“By taking action immediately, we were able to preserve financial stability,” Mack says.
As the Alliance looks at 2011 and beyond, it’s positioned to begin to grow again; and Mack is just the man to lead that charge in his new role as chair of the Alliance Board of Directors, a position he assumed in January. He follows B. Scott Finnell, who until very recently was president and CEO of Alliance member Pressley Ridge, Pittsburgh.
Membership a Key Priority
“We’ve steadied the ship. We’re not entirely out of the challenging period yet—and we probably won’t be for another couple of years—but it’s time to get ready for what’s next,” Mack says. “We should be on the doorsteps of nonprofit human service agencies, helping them realize the value of belonging to the Alliance. That way, as their finances improve, they’ll be excited to make a commitment to membership.”
It follows, then, that building a foundation for expanding the Alliance’s membership is Mack’s highest priority.
“One of my goals is to get more visibility for the organization and to show the sector that this is the membership organization to belong to,” he says.
NEW ALLIANCE STRATEGIC POSITIONING |
Mack first learned about the value of the Alliance from David Kirk, who was president and CEO of Alliance member Children’s Home + Aid, Chicago, when Mack was serving on the agency’s board. He served on the board for 13 years, including a three-year term as board chair. Today, he is an honorary life trustee and serves on the foundation’s board.
“The Alliance’s value proposition is tremendous,” Mack says. “We have a terrific public policy office. The grants we secure for various initiatives and pass-through funding opportunities are proactive and state-of-the-art. Why wouldn’t you want to be part of this organization?”
Nonprofit Service Creates Balance
Mack, who was born and raised in Chicago, became acquainted with the nonprofit sector in the early 1980s when he was working for the professional services firm Ernst & Young. After joining a nonprofit board, he asked the firm if he could devote more time focusing on the nonprofit sector, particularly those organizations that serve families and children.
“I believed being involved with nonprofit organizations brought a good balance to my life,” he says.
As a certified public accountant, Mack says joining a new board typically was followed quickly by pressure to join the finance committee. “It’s an automatic,” he says, with a chuckle.
In 1997, Mack left Ernst & Young and became an executive vice president at LaSalle Bank, a major financial institution in Chicago. He was encouraged to continue his involvement with nonprofit organizations and, while at LaSalle, was chair of their most successful United Way campaign, which resulted in LaSalle being the top corporate contributor to the campaign.
In 2006, Mack retired from the bank. “My involvement with nonprofits is my vocation now,” he says.
In addition to the Alliance board, he serves on the board of the Alliance’s parent orgnaization Families International; FEI Behavioral Health, which is part of the Families International group of companies; Council on Accreditation; Northwestern University Library Board of Governors; and Alzheimer’s Association – Greater Illinois Chapter.
Focusing on the Challenges Ahead
Mack’s experience on the boards of nonprofit human service organizations gives him a strong sense of the challenges and opportunities facing the sector. He points to funding issues as a continuing, significant challenge in the foreseeable future.
“Organizations’ reliance on government funding is a major issue,” he says. “Forty years ago, one of the organizations I worked with received about 10 percent of its funding from government sources; now, it’s more like 80 percent. The reliance on government funding is going to be an issue because states are struggling, the federal government is struggling, and there is pressure to keep taxes down.”
The solution, he says, is what the Alliance has been promoting through its Resource Development Services program for more than a decade: private philanthropy.
Another priority should be evaluation.
“I don’t see us coming out of the financial pressure mode anytime soon, so that means we are going to have to be more effective in the kinds of programs we offer,” he says. “Evaluating programs, effectiveness, and efficiency are crucial. We can’t be all things to all people; somewhere along the line you have to say no.”
That’s a hard thing to do, he acknowledges. “But, if you try to be everything to everyone and you end up expending all your resources to the point that you can’t serve anybody, what good is that?”
Both issues—funding and evaluation—also apply to the Alliance, Mack says, and he expects that related challenges and opportunities will continue to arise during his two-year term. At the end of that term, he hopes those also are the areas in which his impact has been the most pronounced.
“I’ll have been successful if we increased the number of members and we continued to increase our financial viability,” he says. “I think I can achieve that impact.”
View the full roster of the Alliance Board of Directors.
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