Partners in Practice June 2011
As we grow, we learn. An important thing we have heard from the Lead Partners of our first investees is that it’s helpful to share experiences and challenges across the organizations we support—so many are common. Partner, Robin Cory is playing a new role called “Lead Partner Liaison” to help facilitate that sharing. She will be offering insights and updates from our investee teams in this section of the newsletter.
This month’s theme is around Leadership Transitions. We have experienced ED transitions in two of our investees. In the face of that, we have been able to tap into the experience of our partners around strategy development, in particular, to work with the EDs to use the transition as an opportunity to take stock and prioritize.
In the case of Eva’s Print Shop, Alexandra (Executive Director) has worked most recently with Partner, Steve White to assess their needs around staffing and curriculum for their youth training program. Partner Norm Tasevski stepped in to work with the Eva’s team on how their youth training program could be made more flexible (through a modular approach) with the objective of tripling the number of youth to complete the program. Eva’s has also decided to hire a new instructor to roll out the curriculum this fall.
At Skills for Change (SfC), our Lead Partners, Franklin Garrigues and Lindsay Cross have worked with ED, Cheryl May on strengthening their Employer Engagement Strategy, which aims to fundamentally change the way the agency sees and interacts with employers to increase job placements and retention for SfC clients. This requires Skills for Change to adapt its offering to and relationships with employers as well as their internal culture. While we have partners with relevant expertise who are joining the team (including Stephen Brown, Jane Gaskell, Usman Aslam and Steve White), a key learning is that we need strong engagement from our investees to get traction and make an impact. As a result, more than 15 SfC employees have been engaged in our project and work streams.
