Growth Planning
Become More of What You Already Are
You're running a mission-driven organization and you've proven your impact. You are moving from the idea and start-up phase into the growth or maturation phase. You want to grow but aren't sure at what pace, in what ways or how.
We work with you side-by-side to develop a growth plan. At Leadwell, we believe you are the expert in your organization. We provide a process and technical assistance to develop the growth plan that is the right amount of ambitious, feasible and inspiring. Lastly, we always operate through a lens of equity.
At the end of an engagement, your organization will be able to answer:
What work are we going to do in the next X years, and at what scale to meet our growth and impact goals?
What organizational structure supports that work?
What are our revenue needs and from what streams?
What is our projected operating budget and how will our projected revenue cover our costs (including reserves)?
Although each engagement is tailored to the client, below are common components of our growth planning approach.
Strategic Priorities
We anchor growth planning in your strategic priorities. We ensure your organizations has a clear Theory of Action (ToA) and that your service offerings/business lines align to your ToA. We map out (with you) up to three years worth of strategic priorities for each service offering/program based on your ToA and initial impact measures.
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Organizational Shifts
We believe strongly that growing an organization requires that the organizational structure, culture, and policies & practices support the projected growth. We determine the roles and responsibilities needed within your organization to execute the growth plan, and model options for your organizational design. As needed, we offer culture and policy audits with recommendations for organizational shifts in those areas.
Recent Clients Include…
Current-state analysis
Often in conjunction with the strategic priorities process, we do a current-state analysis of financials and customer/client behavior. We determine the research questions to answer with you, and often look at up to three years of past data to understand trends. We use these analyses to refine strategic priorities, and to inform projected growth ranges for each service offering/program.
Financial Models
We create budget models and revenue models based on the strategic priorities and organizational shifts needed for growth. For example, we create a budget tool that shows the operating budget from year 0 to year X of growth. On the revenue side, for example, we model revenue scenarios showing different options for fee-for-service vs. contributed revenue.
CASE STUDIES
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Since its founding, Urban Schools Human Capital Academy (USHCA) has emerged as a leader in professional learning and reform for school districts’ Human Capital departments. USHCA found themselves at an organizational inflection point, wondering how best to increase their scale and impact. USHCA approached Jodi Akst as a partner in this work, after securing a two-year grant from the Carnegie Foundation to support their growth planning efforts. Together, USHCA and Jodi created a scope of work designed to answer the following critical question: How can USHCA increase the scale of its direct service work in terms of revenue, clients, and influence?
Over the course of nine months, Jodi engaged in a highly collaborative approach to achieve the goals of the project. Jodi’s approach blended an outcomes-focused structure with room to adapt based on learnings along the way. She introduced structure by breaking the work into phases - each phase with clear objectives, concrete deliverables, and a kickoff meeting with USHCA stakeholders to build alignment and clarity. Jodi created room to adapt and collaborate by bringing multiple voices into the work, involving various stakeholders in appropriate phases of work, and reaching final on all decisions and deliverables through an iterative process with the USHCA team. This intentional approach honored clients’ expertise and time, and it informed the creation of a set of deliverables that USHCA stakeholders were deeply invested in and ready to use to adapt their future ways of working. The deliverables included:
A SWOT analysis to act as an input for the growth plan
Client and Financial Data Analysis to answer the questions of 1) What do the past three years tell us about revenue trends? 2) What do the past three years tell us about client engagement with our service offerings?
Goals, Roles, & Roadmap which included 1)The high-level growth strategy approach 2) the design of a new team structure, 3) three-year goals by priority and service area, 4) another view of the three-year goals by business strategy vs. product delivery, and 5) a three-year roadmap of USHCA initiatives and activities by service area and aligned to goals
Budget and Growth Models with three years models for both the organizational budget and the growth (revenue) plan
USHCA’s collaboration with Jodi changed how their teams operated, strengthened how their leaders lead, and positioned the organization to achieve their desired scale and impact. Specifically, when Jodi followed up with CEO, Betsy Arons, six months after the project concluded, Betsy shared that the shifts they made to roles of the team allowed for greater autonomy among leadership, more collaboration among team members, and more strategic decision making. The organization increased its operating margin to work towards an increase in their reserves. Team members felt increased ownership over business decisions, and they increased their business development, equipped with clear goals. USHCA shifted from a disconnected way of operating to an integrated way forward, and they grew their business as a result.
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Prospect Hill Academy (PHA) is Massachusetts’ top-performing charter school. They needed a strategic business plan to complement their existing academic strategy. Located in Somerville and Cambridge, PHA serves ~1,000 students in grades PreK to 12 from diverse racial, ethnic, and socio-economic backgrounds. In 2021, 97% of PHA graduates enrolled in college.
The Leadwell Group (Leadwell)’s vision is to ensure every organization reaches its desired impact. Over the course of five months, Leadwell Co-founder, Jod Akst, engaged in a highly collaborative approach to achieve the goals of the project. Leaning on Leadwell’s signature approach of deep listening and strong synthesis, Jodi moved the project team through a process that resulted in a PHA Board Strategic Plan.
Through 1) a SWOT analysis that included numerous interviews with stakeholder to act as an input for the growth plan, 2) a tightly facilitated in-person, two-day retreat to align on strategic areas and overarching goals, key metrics and key milestones for each strategic area, and 3) financial modeling in partnership with PHA’s CFO, Leadwell partnered with the Board to reach their big goals for this work. An external consultant telling an organization what to do never results in successful change or outcomes. Leadwell knows this. Jodi ran the project with an involved Project Committee and the project was run in phases to get buy-in at every stage. Jodi shifted or pivoted the work as needed when relevant data or information pointed the project in a different direction. This resulted in a plan in which the Board was invested and able to move forward.
Specifically, the PHA Board Strategic Plan allowed the Board of Trustees (BoT) to commit to:
Uphold PHA’s mission and identity
Set direction for school size, and ensure the PHA charter includes sending districts to meet Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s requirement of having 80% of students come from towns included in the charter
Provide a plan for improved facilities for the students and staff for years to come
Ensure the BoT and the school have strong leadership after the current BoT Chair and Head of School transition out of their roles
Upon competition of the project, the clients said:
“Jodi did a great job of keeping us on target, getting everyone's input, helping us distill complicated issues, and most importantly creating a final product that not only was supported by all, but most importantly will drive the Trustees to action in support of our mission.”
"Jodi is a thoughtful and skilled facilitator with a keen strategic mind and strong education sector subject matter expertise. She was just what we needed to help our school understand and navigate very complicated circumstances"
Hear our clients talk about their experiences working with The Leadwell Group on Growth/Strategic Planning.
What Our Clients Say….
Jodi Akst, Co-Founder of Leadwell “was extremely knowledgeable about the work we needed to do and her skills at managing multiple personalities and issues were outstanding. Everyone on the team felt that she went the extra mile to ensure satisfaction with the goals and outcomes.” -Elizabeth (Betsy) Arons, Urban Schools Human Capital Academy
“Jodi and Christina are great listeners and are masterful at helping a group get to clarity on their objectives. They bring rigor in analysis when needed and are great at managing the process to stay focused on the desired outcomes or expectations for the engagement.” - Client Lead, Beacon Academy
"Jodi is a thoughtful and skilled facilitator with a keen strategic mind and strong education sector subject matter expertise. She was just what we needed to help our school understand and navigate very complicated circumstances" - Matthew Brewster, Board Member and Project Lead, Prospect Hill Academy