Organizational Navigator

Support Center’s organizational navigator program pairs organizations with an experienced nonprofit leader to support long-term change. For an hour a week, the program focuses on grappling with key strategic issues such as shifts in the operating environment or growth planning.

Our navigators are long-standing nonprofit leaders (average experience of over 30 years) who serve as organizational coaches. They are selected from our pool of over 400 trained interim executives, affiliate consultants and over 100 organizational partners. After administering a baseline assessment, the navigator will help your organization measure its progress according to key performance indicators that are tracked quarterly. The program is designed to leverage the navigators’ knowledge and experience, improve tracking of results, and focus on key organizational priorities.

The program is particularly well-suited to the following types of organizations:

• Start-ups: New organizations, or organizations that lack significant infrastructure, need more than one-time guidance on finance, leadership, governance, or fundraising. Such groups require long-term support to manage the organization’s development, from the evolution of a founding board to a sustainable business model. Working with a navigator, such organizations can identify a baseline and specific results across a range of organizational disciplines. With an investment of four hours a month, your organization is much more likely to develop long-term capacity over 18-36 months.
• Organizations In Transition: Many organizations are facing critical questions about limited cash resources, increased competition, and organizational transitions. Other organizations may be experiencing leadership transitions at the board or staff level, and still others may be considering changes in their organization’s structures or programs. Experienced navigators can work with your organization to create a self-assessment baseline and put “stakes in the ground” for making decisions about the future. Since we know transitions can provoke anxiety, indecision, or declining organizational results, we believe that pairing a navigator with your team can help you identify priorities and make decisions that will help your organization move forward.
• Growing or Expanding Organizations: A growing organization must be able to prioritize the work – determining which opportunities to pursue and which ones to hold off on pursuing. By working with an experienced navigator who has wrestled with such challenges before, you will be able to set sustainable and realistic targets for growth and to appropriately manage, monitor, and evaluate that growth with key performance indicators.

To learn more about the program and how it has evolved, what participants are saying, and how to sign up, check out our Navigator Program Evaluation and email [email protected].