Alliance researching value in applying chief strategy officer model to human service organizations
While most members of the Alliance for Children and Families have a strategic plan, many also admit they struggle to implement it fully. The question is, “Why?”
“Strategic plan implementation often takes a backseat to program and service development, day-to-day ‘firefighting,’ ongoing changes in the regulatory environment, and pursuit of new revenue sources,” says Thomas Aranow, senior advisor for business strategies at Kohls Consulting Group, which is a member of the Alliance’s Executive Consultant Select Group.
This conclusion is based on more than 50 interviews with Alliance member executives recently undertaken as part of the research phase of a planning grant awarded to the Alliance by The Kresge Foundation. The grant allows the Alliance to help discover ways to increase nonprofits’ capacity so they may achieve greater social impact within their spheres of influence.
The Chief Strategy Officer Model
In an online article published by the Alliance for Children & Families Magazine, Aranow says the executives interviewed expressed interest in the potential for creating a senior position within their organizations that would be responsible for ensuring that the strategic plan was both effective and fully carried out.
We’ve struggled to implement a plan because we don’t have someone holding us accountable, and we also need to know how to get there,” says Curtis Mooney, president CEO of Alliance member DePelchin Children’s Center, Houston. “It takes forever because everybody is doing their day-to-day jobs. The detail and accountability is missing—someone looking at it on a regular basis.”
What the Alliance’s current research and interviews suggest is that, within the nonprofit human service sector, successful implementation of long-term strategies—which largely has remained in the domain of the CEO—may be severely limited without a full-time executive who is devoted to that very task and positioned at the highest levels of the organization.
THE 12 ELEMENTS |
One of the already-documented avenues for ensuring that strategic plan implementation leads to greater social impact is the establishment of a chief strategy officer (CSO) position, says Undraye Howard, vice president of the intellectual capital division at the Alliance.
In the for-profit sector, many companies use the CSO model, empowering the person in this function to develop strategies and initiatives, execute related projects, and ensure the organization’s sustainability.
“(A CSO) would help us drive growth in our programs and services,” says Denise Cross, president/CEO of Alliance member Cornerstones of Care, Kansas City, Mo. “We can be smarter in our planning and in our business approach.”
Investment in Infrastructure is Required
Aranow acknowledges it will not be easy for many organizations to seriously examine the importance of strategy and make a commitment to dedicate the significant resources required to support a CSO.
“History, as well as the interests and demands of those who fund nonprofit programs, can and do work against organizational efforts to build the capacity for effective strategic planning,” he says. “The dominant ethic in the nonprofit world is that money is for programs and service delivery. Substantial spending on managerial capacity has been described by some CEOs as taboo, or a luxury not likely to be accepted by board members and governmental sources of revenue.”
Other CEOs have indicated that obtaining resources to support the development of managerial capacity would require significant changes in their organizational cultures, as well as clear evidence that the investment will produce tangible and measurable results for the clients they serve.
“Some of the cultural issues go back hundreds of years,” says Kim Scott, president and CEO of Alliance member Trillium Family Services, Portland, Ore. “(The thinking is that), like the old charities, we shouldn’t make money. We can’t invest in ourselves.”
At present, Aranow adds, the research indicates that the organizations most likely to support development of a CSO are those that recognize the need to invest in infrastructure, understand the connection between enhanced planning and results, and are willing to adopt a deliberate focus on high-level goals.
At first glance, one would assume these would be organizations that have considerable resources. However, the Alliance’s research indicates that smaller organizations also can increase their impact when they allow “big picture” issues to direct growth, innovation, and strategic collaborations.
Aranow says, “Whether the key to the successful pursuit of a strategic perspective is the advent of the CSO, or the development of other new initiatives by CEOs and their executive teams, it is clear that a renewed and substantial effort to capture, align, and execute strategic thinking and planning may be one of the ways, if not the best way, to enhance an organization’s ability to thrive and survive in today’s increasingly complex world.”
Learn more about the Alliance’s chief strategy officer project, or contact Undraye Howard, vice president of the intellectual capital division at 414-359-6554.
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