C05 Session: Two Stories of MSO Evolution

This session will explore the mutations and choices that MSOs need to make to stay relevant.  Wilder Center for Communities, in its 22-year history, has moved through four phases: improved management, mission and impact, vital communities, and sector impact.  Community Resource Exchange evolved over 25 years from its founding focus on strengthening community-based organizations in poor communities, to a more robust program agenda to ensure impact at the community level.  This session will explore how goals changed over time, the new strategies each MSO adopted, and the lessons learned during these evolutions.

Most MSOs are constantly trying to balance how responsive or proactive to be, as their goals change over time in response to the changing environment, and their organizational strategies evolve.  Each Management Support Organization (MSOs) identifies some combination of organizational strategies that range along the continuum from reactive to proactive strategic responses.  As their organizational evolution continues, chosen strategies also evolve.  Each shift carries with it certain implications and challenges; participants will hear the lessons learned and the resulting effect on community impact.

WCC’s evolution and capacity building work with nonprofit organizations has changed in line with the Wilder Foundation’s focus, with what works, with what the community needs, and perhaps most importantly, with our increasing sophistication in choosing strategies that achieve greater impact with fewer resources.  Our history has moved through four phases.  The history is instructive.  It shows how we have increased our impact through constant innovation and by deepening and broadening our core competencies.

Over the past few years, CRE focused on aligning its staff and financial resources with its commitment to developmental consulting and to measuring its impact to ensure it continues to have the maximum effect on its clients.  CRE recognized a need to revisit many of its assumptions, including the reactive nature of MSOs.  In doing so, it embraced its position as a respected intermediary between public and private funders, nonprofit executives and community leaders and as a repository of information on the challenges and successful strategies found in NYC’s most under-resourced communities. 

The session will explore what precipitated the changes within each organization, and the challenges and opportunities that continue to emerge.

About the Presenters

Carol Lukas, Fieldstone Alliance (formerly Wilder Center for Communities)

Carol Lukas is Director of Capacity Building Programs for the Wilder Center for Communities at the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation. Wilder Center for Communities (WCC) is committed to building the capacity of leaders and organizations to work together to improve their communities and strengthen the nonprofit sector—locally, nationally, and internationally. WCC provides a broad range of consulting, training, publishing, and research services, and serves as partner and coordinator for local and national capacity building initiatives. Lukas has over twenty-five years consulting and training experience with nonprofit, government, community, and private sector organizations, large networks, alliances, communities, and nonprofit capacity building efforts. She typically assists groups with strategic planning, restructuring, collaboration, and community planning, and trains nonprofit consultants. Carol has assisted many funders and national organizations in planning and implementing capacity building efforts, including Local Initiatives Support Corporation, Habitat for Humanity International, The Pew Charitable Trusts, American Humanics, Faith and Philanthropy Institute, and the National Democratic Institute. She currently serves on the board of United Nations Association of Minnesota and The Saint Anthony Park Community Foundation, and has been executive director of two nonprofit organizations. She is "Strengthening Nonprofit Performance: A Funder’s Guide to Capacity Building" and "Community Forums: Engaging Citizens, Mobilizing Communities."

Denice Williams, Community Resource Exchange

Denice Williams is Deputy Director for Programs at Community Resource Exchange. CRE strives to ensure that the poorest New Yorkers have access to quality services by strengthening local nonprofits as well as catalyzing the development of new services where appropriate. CRE works with over 300 organizations each year served by over 40 staff as diverse as the communities they serve. Now in her 15th year with CRE, Denice carries a healthy client load and is in charge of identifying and developing new initiatives, developing strategies in support of CRE’s advocacy work with communities and all non-consulting programmatic activities. She is co-author of CRE publications From Vision to Reality: a Guide to Forming and Sustaining Community-Based Efforts and Mastering Your First Government Contract.