THE BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF GREENWICH

Utilizing Capacity Building to Invest in the Future

THE CHALLENGE

Hopeful for continual growth and improvement

With a proud history dating back over 100 years, the Boys and Girls Club of Greenwich (BGCG) is one of 4,000 clubs across the United States providing critical afterschool and summer care for boys and girls ages 6-18. After developing its strategic plan in 2017, BGCG has engaged The Strategy Group to help with capacity building each year since.

According to the National Council of Nonprofits, “Capacity building is whatever is needed to bring a nonprofit to the next level of operational, programmatic, financial, or organizational maturity, so it may more effectively and efficiently advance its mission into the future. Capacity building is not a one-time effort to improve short-term effectiveness, but a continuous improvement strategy toward the creation of a sustainable and effective organization.”

THE PROCESS

An invisible infrastructure that supports the mission

BGCG recognized the importance of putting an “infrastructure” into place for continual and evolving capacity building year after year. Each year, the leadership team meets with The Strategy Group to develop an annual plan that addresses both short- and long-term goals for the organization and culture. This has included the following work:

Leadership Development:

Executive Coaching – TSG provides one-on-one bi-weekly executive coaching support for the President and CEO. During this time, we act as the President and CEO’s sounding board – challenging her assumptions and helping her to overcome them.

Scenario Planning – During the pandemic, the BGCG executive team needed to carefully and thoughtfully plan, first, if they could open their summer camp, and then, how they would open the camp in the summer of 2020. TSG was called in to help lead a meaningful conversation and guide the team through a series of scenario planning meetings. Ultimately, scenario planning helped the BGCG team to react quickly and decisively, recognize and mitigate risk, and plan for summer camp. To read more, click here.

Retreats/Trainings – BGCG has made an investment in their senior leadership team. To that end, TSG has crafted a professional development program designed to build strong future leaders. Topics have included: Planning, Building Effective Teams, Effective Supervision, and Conflict Resolution.

Governance Work:

Board Support – Purposeful boards understand their roles in helping organizations live their missions. The Strategy Group has created a board development plan that includes ongoing support for the board chair, an annual board assessment and satisfaction survey, assistance with the CEO evaluation, and board retreats and trainings.

Capital Campaign Support – The Club last embarked on a Capital Campaign in 2003, when it set it sights on upgrading its facilities. The time has come for a new Capital Campaign, which TSG will offer support for, to make continued improvements of the main Clubhouse and Camp Simmons, 77 acres of unspoiled wilderness that includes playing fields, a swimming pool, bathhouse, covered area, lake, and miles of trails.

THE OUTCOME

A strategic approach provides long-term sustainability

BGCG’s commitment to capacity building has allowed the staff and board to drive positive change while embracing continuity, and provide a sharper focus for the organization’s work in serving its community. As a result, BGCG has been able to:

Reach more families in the community.
Strengthen and fine tune its program offerings.
Develop a measurement system to track program impact.
Utilize space and technology efficiently to increase revenue and improve service delivery, productivity, and community reach.
Improve community awareness and outreach to increase participation, and financial support.
Secure resources form a diverse array of institutional and individual donors to fully support needs.

BGCG continues to be positioned for major growth and will continue to work with The Strategy Group in the coming year.

“Thank you to The Strategy Group for providing impactful, long-term strategic guidance throughout the years to our Boys and Girls Club. They have proved to be an invaluable resource for me as CEO. They have a wonderful, insightful way of providing encouragement and support to our organization’s staff and board of directors, while also driving us to address the big picture and the key issues that will enable long-term success and significant capacity building for years to come.“