The Challenge
Long Island-based Life's WORC provides comprehensive support for individuals with developmental disabilities, including mental retardation and autism. Founded in 1971, the agency manages 32 homes and 11 community-based programs throughout Long Island and Queens.
The organization has a very effective IT operation. So much so that it has succeeded in making IT an important part of Life's WORC's corporate culture. It also has sufficient capacity to enable it to provide its IT services to other nonprofits, particularly on Long Island.
As a result, Life's WORC asked NESC to develop a business plan for selling its IT services. This would represent a “social enterprise” or "earned income” opportunity, a subject of major importance to nonprofits in the present economic environment. Life's WORC's objective was to obtain a reasonable return with a predictable income stream that would contribute to the funding of its primary mission -- helping the developmentally challenged.
The NESC Solution
The business plan that NESC developed fully supports the proposition that this can be an income-producing venture with relatively low risk. Projected financial outcomes show a positive contribution to overhead in the first year of operation. Additionally, the plan provides Life's WORC with a road map for achieving its bottom-line objectives that include: value proposition, pricing parameters, target markets, sales/marketing strategy and the organizational structure needed to support the effort.
The Challenge
Founded in 1964, Jazzmobile seeks to keep alive and strengthen the heritage of Afro-Latin jazz, a uniquely American art form, through quality performances and educational programs. Sensing a deterioration in its reach in connection with its 45th Anniversary, Jazzmobile engaged NESC to prepare a total communications plan aimed at bolstering its brand awareness, appealing to a broadened range of ethnic and age groups and, just as importantly, increasing its revenue opportunities.
The NESC Solution
NESC consultants developed a comprehensive and multi-faceted marketing program to heighten Jazzmobile's visibility while at the same time create new revenue potentials. They presented specific ideas to attract both younger and older audiences and to bring their mobile bandstand to targeted venues that would increase exposure to more varied ethnic groups concentrated in different locations within the New York area. NESC designed a detailed advertising and public relations strategy for Jazzmobile. Particular attention was paid to expanding the website and devoting much more effort to other Internet-related marketing and communications initiatives.
The Challenge
Maria Droste Services describes itself as a community of professionals who provide counseling for people in need but with limited financial resources and professional training, development and supervision. The services of Maria Droste are characterized by its pervasive culture: an overriding commitment to a shared sense of social responsibility, and respect for each individual. To ensure the future sustainability of its operation, Maria Droste Services engaged NESC in the development of a strategic plan.
This represented the first time that Maria Droste Services went through an organized strategic planning effort.
The NESC Solution
An NESC consulting team with appropriate experience and expertise assessed the operations of Maria Droste Services. As part of this assessment NESC conducted interviews with the entire staff and all Board members. This assessment resulted in a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the Maria Droste operation and helped identify and prioritize action plans. The result was the delivery of a customized strategic plan that is serving as a guide for future sustainability.
The Challenge
Outreach Project, which has been providing drug and alcohol services in the New York metropolitan area since 1980, stands out as a leader in the provision of adolescent residential services, services for women and children, and treatment services for diverse populations. In addition, it now operates the largest Credentialed Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Counselor (CASAC) Diploma training program in New York State.
Despite its great success Outreach Project felt the need to increase its visibility in the markets it serves. To accomplish this, Outreach management asked NESC to help in the development of an effective branding and marketing effort.
The NESC Solution
NESC, in conjunction with Outreach Project's management, put in place a branding process which was able to capture the essence of Outreach and define it in a clear and concise statement. This message was translated to a tag-line that describes the benefits Outreach offers and, just as importantly, a tag-line which staff and other key stakeholders can relate to and be motivated by... Reaching Out to Build Healthy Lives.
The tag line was integrated with a new logo.
This package has been factored into a marketing action plan that aims at maximizing Outreach Project's staff and client base in selling its services to clearly defined target audiences, with Outreach's website reflecting the "new look" and fully supporting its business development activities. The branding process will be coordinated with the development of a marketing/sales plan. This will include defining Outreach's target markets and outlining approaches for reaching these markets.
As part of the marketing initiative, Outreach Project wants to capitalize on its management staff in selling its services by training and motivating them. This will require outlining and developing a tailored sales training program with the NESC consultant(s) implementing the training for the managers.
The Challenge
In its sixth decade, Asia Society is an international organization dedicated to strengthening relationships and deepening understanding among the peoples of Asia and the United States. Having opened five international offices and four domestic offices and decentralized its financial systems, Asia Society found that it had outgrown the capabilities of its finance department. The organization engaged NESC to find a new chief financial officer with experience in multi-country, multi-office operations who would raise the level of financial management and professionalism to that of other world-class global entities.
The NESC Solution
NESC's Executive Search team researched and interviewed candidates from southeast Asia and across the United States, presented 12 to the client, and participated in eight candidate interviews with senior management. From this group three finalists were chosen, who then met with the president and board members. One was selected for the position. NESC helped negotiate the final contract.
The Challenge
MDRC, created in 1974 by the Ford Foundation and a group of Federal agencies, is best known for mounting large-scale evaluations of real-world policies and programs targeted to low-income people. The organization has also worked with others to design and evaluate such research programs.
MDRC's board audit committee requested an outside assessment of the firm's corporate-level risk. Management selected NESC to perform this assessment.
The NESC Solution
NESC assembled a team of consultants with technical expertise in risk assessment. The group interviewed 21 senior- and mid-level MDRC employees, and evaluated external environmental factors. NESC delivered a comprehensive report that identified and quantified risk at two levels -- operational risks and strategic risks -- and offered recommendations to more effectively deal with risk in each instance.
The Challenge
Bergen County, New Jersey, is exploring and promoting ways that municipalities may cooperate and share activities as a means of generating savings and thereby moderating residential tax burdens. NESC was engaged for two projects concerning shared services by the Public Works Departments of contiguous municipalities within Bergen. The first, entailing 13 municipalities in the northwest part of the County, led to the second, serving another group of 16 municipalities known as the Riverside Cooperative.
The NESC Solution
In these engagements NESC consultants interviewed all municipality Borough Administrators and Superintendents of Public Works, as well as County officials. They inventoried equipment and studied similarities and differences in how public works services were delivered in each municipality. This research led to sets of specific recommendations for improving efficiencies and reducing costs through the use of shared services and the sharing of other costs, as well as recommendations for additional studies on the feasibility of a number of other possible actions.
The Challenge
The Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) provides diversified support for the rabbinical needs for Reformed Jewish Congregations and their rabbinical staffs. With the appointment of new senior management, CCAR sought the aid of NESC to oversee the restructuring of their financial management and bookkeeping processes upon the departure of administrative staff. CCAR also sought to ensure that their financial reporting, controls and data collection were current.
The NESC Solution
A team of skilled NESC financial specialists worked closely and intensely with the staff of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. A complete review of the financial accounts and accounting and reporting procedures was conducted to gain a full understanding of the financial situation and operating processes at CCAR. NESC restructured the Chart of Accounts, redesigned financial management operation procedures, provided guidance and training to CCAR administrative staff, and updated requisite audit information so as to bring CCAR into report compliance. Subsequent to these services NESC continued to provide ongoing monthly operating support to CCAR for a multi-year period.
The Challenge
For many years, the Western Connecticut Youth Orchestra (and its affiliated Junior Orchestra) operated as The Ridgefield Symphony Youth Orchestra, an arm of the Ridgefield Symphony, offering youngsters, through high school ages, a chance to receive quality orchestral training and to perform publicly. Increasingly, however, the Youth Orchestra began operating independently, ultimately concluding that it should separate completely from The Ridgefield Symphony. To help it navigate this process, it turned to NESC.
The NESC Solution
The NESC team served as a kind of midwife for the youth orchestra's rebirth as an independent organization. First the team interviewed the group's key board members and sent a questionnaire to the full board and all officers to solicit their views on the priorities and operations. Then the NESC team attended and led the group's initial board meetings, helping streamline the agendas, set priorities and organize committees. With this NESC guidance, the Board elected a new chairman, appointed an executive director, adopted a vision statement and by-laws, and crafted a new logo and new name -- The Western Connecticut Youth Orchestra.
The Challenge
After 17 years of independent operation in Mattituck on Long Island, the North Fork Early Learning Center, a child care facility, concluded that it must reposition itself. As a result, it merged with the Family Service League, an older organization delivering a range of human services at over 20 Long Island sites. The merger, if executed properly, would allow the North Fork Center to move into a much larger facility and possibly double its enrollment. To help it make this important shift in operations, the North Fork Center engaged NESC.
The NESC Solution
NESC consultants, skilled in strategic planning and marketing, evaluated ways by which the Center could avoid becoming buried and thus lose its identity in the larger organization. The NESC team outlined how the Center could focus its image more effectively, sharpen its marketing message and mount an ambitious promotional and community relations campaign. NESC then worked with the Center to create an advisory board and launch a campaign to boost fundraising. The result: The Center met all of its operating and financial goals in the merger and has been able to expand its services to the community.
The Challenge
It is not part of the famed New York Public Library system, but based on its name at the time -- Queens Borough Public Library -- that is what most people seemed to think. Rather, it is a top-flight library in its own right, fiercely independent, with a very distinguished history and boasting the highest circulation of any library system in America. The Library decided that it was about time that it got some respect. How to do so was
The Challenge
that it brought to NESC.
The NESC Solution
NESC consultants researched the Library's operations, interviewed many Library and development staffers and sampled New Yorkers for attitudes about the Library. The result was a fulsome NESC plan: A detailed analysis of the Library's image and opportunities and a list of recommendations to re-brand the Library, including changing its name and logo. NESC also recommended creating a new position of marketing vice president to be responsible for strategic and tactical aspects of internal and external communications. Pleased by the proposals, the Library then asked NESC to help recruit this new marketing executive, which NESC did, to plaudits from the Library.
The Challenge
In 2006, the Connecticut Humanities Council (CHC) embarked upon a year-long environmental scan to evaluate the CHC's heritage grant-making effectiveness. The scan
identified three areas of greatest challenge facing heritage organizations today: the necessity to understand the changing interests of new audiences, the necessity to create and support effective leadership, and the necessity to improve financial stability. In response, the CHC overhauled and re-shaped its traditional granting programs in the fall of 2007 into two granting strands: organizational effectiveness (inward looking) and community impact (outwardly focused).
Next, the Council created a Heritage Resource Center and Field Services Program in the spring of 2008. The HRC gives museum directors, staff and board members access to resources that help them adapt and respond to the unprecedented challenges facing organizations of every size today. Visitors to the HRC website find reviews of new books and articles, recommendations on the most useful websites and blogs, and special reports, surveys and audience studies. As part of its field services program, the CHC called upon NESC to develop a pilot program to help small heritage organizations in Middlesex County.
The NESC Solution
The NESC team collaborated with CHC's Director of the newly created Heritage Resources Center to create and conduct a pilot Directors Roundtable Discussion series for six directors of small historical societies in Middlesex County. This series of six monthly, two-hour facilitated discussions produced an active exchange of new ideas, the most important involving ways to grow revenue and reduce expenses.
According to the Director, “another important goal of the series was to promote networking and collaboration as an effective strategy to address common concerns and leverage opportunities. This was one of several important outcomes achieved from the series because the participants developed a series of concrete possibilities for future action including ideas to share staff and develop joint public programs. The group has continued to move forward with their project, has continued to meet on their own, and the CHC anticipates that group participants will be seeking future funding from CHC.”
