Bold Goal Strategy 1: Develop Leaders to Drive Results

By Dionne Galloway and Monisha Kapila

As we shared last week, ProInspire’s Bold Goal is that social sector organizations have high performing leaders at all levels in order to fulfill their missions. The first strategy we have defined to achieve our bold goal is to develop leaders with the mindsets, skills, and tools needed to drive results.

What do we currently do?

ProInspire launched our first leadership development program in 2013 – Managing for Success (M4S). We developed Managing for Success in response to  partner feedback that  a gap existed around training and support for new managers in their organizations. We researched the landscape and discovered that, despite demand for professional development programs, such offerings are scarce and access is limited in the sector. We conducted a survey of nonprofit managers and found that despite strong interest in leadership or managerial training, and a firm belief that it will make them more effective in their roles, only half of nonprofit managers received such training since assuming a role managing direct reports.

Managing for Success has been successful in enabling us to reach rising leaders with targeted leadership development. We created a curriculum focused on Managing Self, Managing Others, and Managing Organizations – leveraging assessments, adult learning pedagogy, and best-in-class materials from across sectors. Since 2013, we have developed 182 Management Fellows through M4S programs in Washington, DC and the San Francisco Bay Area. A 2015 survey of M4S alumni demonstrates strong results:

• 90% of M4S alumni respondents report greater knowledge compared to before their fellowship.
• 35% of respondents reported receiving a promotion; 20% gained an increase in role responsibility and 20% made a lateral move to another organization. More than half say M4S was a significant contributor to successful career moves.
• Nearly 80% of respondents say M4S was very or extremely valuable.
• Net Promoter Score of 73 (out of 100) ranks highly, along with Costco and Apple.
• We have also seen qualitative success, with Managing for Success alumni moving into executive positions, taking on ED roles, and increasing their impact.

In 2015, building off of the strengths of M4S, we began to offer custom leadership development programs directly for ProInspire partners. We have been able to leverage our existing curriculum to meet partner needs in an effective and affordable approach. We have run programs for staff at Communities in Schools, Share Our Strength, College Summit, and more.

In 2016, we developed the ProInspire Leadership Institute, powered by The Kresge Foundation. The ProInspire Leadership Institute is a two-day leadership program that focuses on Managing Self and Managing Others. We also introduced two new modules to our curriculum: Implicit Bias and Trust in Organizations. We will run the Institute in seven cities total through our partnership with Kresge, through 2017. This initiative is helping us understand the strong need for leadership development in different cities, and the potential for partnership to expand our impact.

What have we learned?

Through our strategy process, we have identified some key learnings around leadership development:

• There is a huge gap around leadership development in the social sector – particularly programs like ours that push individuals to reflect, learn, and practice
• Our alumni want leadership development that supports them at different career stages
• Our partners want to offer leadership development to support their rising leaders
• Surveys of our alumni identify that lack of leadership development is one of the top two barriers to success in the social sector (lack of clear career pathways is the second top barrier)
• There are many areas where we could better support the sector in developing leaders if we have increased capacity and resources

How will we implement this strategy?

We will pilot new programs to expand leadership development offerings over the next two years:

• In 2017, we will develop and pilot a program focused on equipping leaders with the mindsets, skills, and tools needed around diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• In 2017, our staff and faculty will participate in a Results-Based Facilitation (RBF) workshop series through our partnership with the Annie E. Casey Foundation. RBF is a competency-based approach to participating in and facilitating meetings in order to get results. The goal of this program is for our team to become RBF Practitioner Qualified, so that we can begin offering RBF programs to our network.
• In 2018, we will develop and pilot a program focused on equipping Director-level individuals with the mindsets, skills, and tools needed to drive results (M4S 2.0).
• In 2018, we will launch an executive coaching program – matching rising leaders with executive coaches for intensive, personalized leadership development.
• In 2017 and 2018, we will engage more nonprofits and foundations in creating programs that directly support their employees and grantees.

What do you see as the needs to develop leaders with the mindsets, skills, and tools needed to drive results? Please share your ideas and feedback.

Dionne Galloway is the Director of Leadership Development Programs at ProInspire.
Monisha Kapila is the Founder and CEO of ProInspire.