FINDING YOUR FORTE
STRATEGIC ARTICULATION EXPERIENCE PROFILES
OUR EXPERIENCES
Strategic Planning Annie E. Casey Foundation Atlanta Civic Site Strategic Plan Executive Coaching Atlanta Food and Farm Network Black Teacher Collaborative Dogwood Alliance (Environmental Justice) Focused Community Strategies Ministries (Historic South Atlanta) The Forum on Education Abroad Historic Westside Gardens GEEARS / PAACT (Promising All Atlanta Children Thrive) Georgia Grantmakers Association HYPE - Hope for Youth, Inc – (Empowering girls of color through computing and technology) Impact Church Metro Atlanta Land Bank (formerly Land Bank Authority) National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) National Black MBA Association RRC Resources for Residents and Communities (RRC - Reynoldstown) Summerhill Neighborhood Development Corporation - SNDC Slam! Academy – Charter School Launch Transformation Alliance
References Kweku Forstall kforstall@aecf.org 404.245.1913 Tomi Heirs thiers@aecf.org 404.585.5603 Annie E Casey Foundation Chris Norman Metro Atlanta Land Bank 404.374.6236 cnorman@metroatlantalandbank .org Melissa Torres Forum on Education Abroad 774.644.5457 Dr. Leah Austin, President & CEO National Black Child Development Institute 470.755.9951 laustin@nbcdi.org Kristina Newton, Founder and CEO HYPE – Hope for Youth Coding and Technology for Girls of Color 404.519.6724 Kristina@gethype.org Kay Wallace, Former CEO National Black MBA Association 205.454.8806
Facilitation Atlanta Public Schools Charter System Strategic Plan Fulton County School System GEEARS / PAACT (Promising All Atlanta Children Thrive) Georgia Funders’ Network for Racial Equity Posse Foundation – Building High Performing Teams Russell Innovation Center for Entrepreneurs – Building High Performing Team Retreat For reference, noteworthy Project Briefs - Facilitation Working With Non-profit Board Of Directors Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative Board Retreat Dogwood Alliance (Environmental Justice) Georgia Grantmakers Alliance (GGA) Historic Westside Gardens HYPE - Hope for Youth, Inc – (Empowering girls of color through computing and technology) National Black Child Development Institute Slam! Academy – Charter School Launch
Hyperlinks indicate Sample Deliverables.
Client Experience Interview and Evaluation Summary Sample (Click Image)
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STRATEGIC ARTICULATION EXPERIENCE PROFILES
Bottom Line Bottom Line helps low-income and first- generation-to-collegestudents get to and through college. We helped their development articulate its go-to-market strategy for fund development, pursue (and win) grant opportunities and develop a pitch deck.
National Black MBA Association Under the direction of the incoming CEO, we developed their strategic articulation map focused on their purpose through facilitated sessions with leadership. We continue to be engaged to lead and coordinate implementation of their strategic plan.
Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative We led Atlanta Wealth Building Institute’s board and leadership through a two-day retreat experience. As an organization, AWBI is focused on closing the black wealth gap in Atlanta through empowering entrepreneurship and systemically strengthening access to capital for black entrepreneurs. We designed and delivered this strategic planning experience to mobilize a strong, working board to empower their new executive director and set her up for success.
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Impact Church – Strategic Articulation
We led Impact Church on a several-month engagement to articulate its strategic plan in addition to its brand strategy and guidelines. This engagement created a leadership / staff roadmap tool in addition to a marketing and branding guideline. Staff and leaders always carry and reference their strategic articulation map in making key decisions and staying focused on what they’ve chosen to make priorities. Vision Construction Once our strategic articulation was completed, we needed to build the implementation plan. Having led the implementation through consulting, we needed to transfer ownership of the plan to the client to continue without our support. To prepare them for this key transition, we created a vision construction experience in the space of one of the city’s most prominent commercial builder’s offices and provided construction hats and cold pack lunch pails (that they continuedto use as a reminder of the experience).
Atlanta Public Schools While leading delivering of key district strategic initiatives in the midst of a cheating scandal, the leader and the strategic program and project delivery team found themselves working through abysmal morale. We facilitated a series of Finding Your Forte starting with the key leader and then her team. This energy carried over into the entire district when the new superintendent embraced StrengthsFinder as a strategic thrust to ‘Focus on What’s Strong instead of What’s Wrong’. This helped them navigate beyond the scandal, and now every teacher and staff knows their strength from StrengthsFinder and the use them in everyday education processes and support.
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PAACT! (PROMISE ALL ATLANTA CHILDREN THRIVE)
Historic Westside Gardens
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City of Atlanta - Fulton County Land Bank Authority As an approach to level set new board members with old on how landbanks work, we had board members play an equity version of Monopoly with members having the opportunity to be the ‘land banker’.
National Society of Black Engineers Currently leading the facilitation to guide NSBE student and staff leadership through a several month exercise to articulate its strategic path forward. As an organization, they are focused on movement building to continue to make black engineer a household name in homes and communities of color and beyond.
Transformation Alliance In an effort to create an immersive experience connectedto their purpose related to equitable transit-oriented development, we had members take MARTA to our strategic planning session. We also featured only vendors in the community neighborhoods they served including
We were part of a team engaged to define the strategic articulation for Transformation Alliance focused on equitable transit-oriented development through mobilizing a group on non-profits and creating cohesive synergies to combat racial inequity in Atlanta with regards to transit and development.
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ATLANTA FOOD& FARM – STRATEGIC ARTICULATION AND IMPLEMENTATIONPLANNING
We facilitated the development of Atlanta Food and Farm Strategic Articulation. We also led the development of their implementation plan and delivered project management trainingto theirteam.
Contact: Kwabena Nkromo, Executive Director
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ONE CLIENT’S EXPERIENCE An interview with Samantha (Evans) Maxey, Executive Director of Communications Fulton County School System
What was your objective? I wanted to bring in an outside person to be able to facilitate a process where my team was engaged and where we could be refocused on our work; see our deficiencies, strengths and building blocks to move forward and create our plan for the next year. Usually, we would do it on our own. This time I thought it might be helpful to have that outside perspective.
In addition, I was new in my role. I was there a little under a year. So there were also some internal dynamics at play as there will be with new leaders, new plans, new ways of doing things, etc. I was also very interested in getting help to gel better with my team.
Describe the experience. Were there any memorable moments? The experience started before the actual event with the entire team. This was incredibly valuable to me. Reggie and I met a couple times and had in depth conversations about my needs, hopes and goals. He was very candid from the start, which I appreciated. He told me, “We need to deal with you first, see what’s going on with you, before we focus on the team.” He helped me pull out my own deficiencies as a leader. He challenged me to be comfortable with those types of conversations. He then started drafting some things based on what he heard. He shared those plans with me and his creativity was amazing. He presented a menu of options for the different ways to engage, price point, etc. Having those choices allowed me to pick and choose the right solution for our needs. Then, we got to the part of engaging with the team. He came to the office, met the team, introduced himself and prepped them for what they were going to experience. It definitely got them curious, which was good. Then, the actual day was amazing. It was refreshing to be in this contemporary space, to think, reflect and breathe. Breakfast was set up. His attention to the little things made all the difference. It was important for the whole experience. He knew that. We had breakfast, mingled and just enjoyed each other, which was nice. The structure, organization and very deliberate way he went from one item to the next was perfect. He wasn’t afraid to push where he needed to push. Again, he wasn’t afraid to allow us to be uncomfortable.
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Reggie knew more about communications and public education than I knew. I was really surprised. He did his homework. He knew our challenges. There was no, let’s get him up to speed. He was 100 percent present. And that was important. He knew our stakeholders, roles, environment, etc. I was impressed. There was one memorable moment when he pointed out a stakeholder group we hadn’t made a real focus. He was surprised. After the light bulb moment, we were too. We still talk about it to this day. Reggie took the time to do the work to make sure he would truly be a good guide and expert on what we deal with, and what we were trying to accomplish. The icing on the cake was that he went out and found some communications professionals to come in and have a two-way conversation with us to discuss best practices, things we were doing, opportunities for growth, current trends, etc. That was the best part for us. Reggie was smart enough to not bring in other educators, but corporations like Coke and AT&T to provide fresh perspective and new thinking. The entire team said that we need to do that regularly because it was just so valuable. What has changed for you since working with Your Crescendo? For me personally, I am now forced to regularly step back and take a breath. I find myself thinking more about my team, my expectations, how I’m communicating with them, how communication is being received, the impact that it is having. I’m also more cognizant about being more caring, listening, paying attention to the unspoken things, body language, etc. I am holding myself more accountable. Then there are the tactical things: how we work more collaboratively on plans,working more as unit, how we lead staff meetings. As far as my team, what was tremendous was that we walked away feeling more like a team. I had this one colleague who rejected this word “team”; didn’t understand how that reflected our department, work. And now that person is more comfortable with using the word; and sees that we are all concerned about each other and working together to accomplish our shared goals. Why Your Crescendo? As professionals and leaders, we are too close to our own work and our perspective on a daily basis to be objective enough to see opportunities for growth; opportunities period. It is refreshing to get an outside perspective to measure your success, your progress, your worth. You cannot do it yourself. I think it’s critical to have that outside view. And then there’s Reggie who comes to the table with tons of resources, who is so creative and all inclusive of the possibilities of how you can strengthen yourself, your organization and what you what to accomplish. Every consultant cannot do that. But he has very natural knack for it. I enjoyed the entire experience. Really, the actual day was just a piece of it for him. He was thoughtful, organized and had a big-picture view of how to help me and my team. While working with him, you wouldn’t think he had other clients. You would have thought he worked in public schools with the knowledge, skill and expertise he brought.
I would recommend him any day. He is the real deal.
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