Originally published February 2006

MY TURN is one of the leading organizations in the country working to prepare low-income young people aged 16 to 22 (many of whom have already left high school without a diploma) to enter the workforce or continue their education. Each participant works with MY TURN staff to develop a carefully tailored plan that includes the building of job skills, job placement and retention support, as well as assistance in accessing other educational opportunities and earning their GED.

In 2004, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation awarded MY TURN $1.8 million to implement its growth plan to provide greater opportunities for vocational training and educational services to teens living in small, urban communities in New England. Executive Director Barbara Duffy spoke with EMCF about some of the challenges and results MY TURN has seen as it undertakes this substantial expansion.

EMCF: What does MY TURN hope to accomplish over the next several years?

Barbara Duffy: Our number one goal is to double the number of youth we serve in our programs, going from 1100 to 2000 over the next three to five years. But there are some other key goals we’re aiming to achieve. One is to continue to make improvements to the quality of our program. That’s very much tied to another goal, which is to undertake a comprehensive evaluation to determine the effectiveness of our service approach. We also intend to diversify and expand the funders who support us. In particular we want to encourage other private funders to invest in MY TURN. Traditionally much of our funding has come from public sources.

Does MY TURN have any longer term ambitions?

When we look out beyond five years, we hope to be able to serve thousands of youth throughout New England, and we’d like to see our program serve as the model for other states throughout the country.

What kind of progress have you achieved?

I’m pleased to say that MY TURN is making great progress toward all our major milestones. For instance, we expanded into a second state, New Hampshire, ahead of plan and we’re now serving 240 youth in Manchester and Nashua. Here in Massachusetts, our home state, we have expanded to Lynn, Chelsea, and Fitchburg and added programs in Brockton, Fall River, and New Bedford.

We've also reorganized our operations, put performance metrics in place, added staff and board, and also have begun board development work. In addition, we created an information technology plan and some new systems are already up and running. On other fronts, we have developed and are pursuing plans to diversify and increase revenue in order to meet the organization’s budget, which has nearly doubled to $2.86 million in 2006 from $1.48 million in 2004. In the next three years, we're looking to continue this momentum and reach an annual budget of $4.2 million in 2009.

What prompted MY TURN's desire to grow...and what made you feel this what the right time for the organization to embark on a growth plan?

We chose to grow for the simple reason that there are many, many youth living in poor communities who need the kind of help we can provide. With help from the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation we were able to do all the things necessary to get to ready to undertake growth: first was to do a thorough analysis of the youth development field to see how our program model compared to others and how we could meet the unanswered demand for our kind of service. Similarly, we took a hard look at our then-current organizational capacity and capabilities and developed a plan for making improvements so that we could grow in meaningful and measurable way.

What challenges have you had to deal with as you've been implementing your growth plan?

MY TURN’s biggest challenge has been the quintessential quandary most growing organizations that have limited finances face: do you build infrastructure or expand programs?

On the one hand an organization must build infrastructure to support growth and sustain quality. On the other hand an organization builds its credibility and attracts investments by expanding and strengthening programs. We faced our challenges by being smart about how we used our resources. We started by restructuring our management systems. For example, we had one deputy director reporting directly to me who was responsible for everything from programs and benchmarks to development. We realized that this was not an efficient way to structure the team. We made her the vice president of programs and added a vice president of operations (overseeing H.R., technology, and outcomes) and a vice president of external affairs whose primary role is the entire development operation. Then we got much more strategic by deciding to put time and money into efforts that would yield maximum results. For instance, our plan had called for a substantial upgrade in our technology systems that was scheduled to occur over the life of the business plan. It became obvious to us that we need to front load these expenses and work quickly to improve all of our hardware, software, and data intake systems, which resulted in a more efficient system almost immediately. We also made the decision early on to invest in fund development.

How has MY TURN dealt with the need to recruit and retain talented staff, especially those for newly created leadership and supervisory positions?

Fortunately, MY TURN had a strong bench of talent from the start. Over the years we have been very deliberate in developing our management capacity. We've routinely promoted our most skilled staff into senior or middle management positions and gave them opportunities to develop their management and leadership skills. With help from the Bridgespan Group and new financial support from the Smith Family Foundation, we are adapting leadership training modules from Bain & Company, and also providing intensive training to all of our managers. Also, before rushing to hire a full complement of senior managers, we decided to use highly skilled external consultants to guide our growth and help refine our work in the areas of technology, fund development, communications, and board development.

What has been the board's role in planning/implementing/overseeing your growth?

As we were developing our business plan, the board provided important feedback throughout the process. The board also has been extremely supportive–exhibiting courage and flexibility–as we were taking on some major work: doubling the size of our budget, expanding to new cities and regions. At the same time, they've had to be willing to play an increased role and take on more responsibilities.

Has embarking on a growth plan required you to change the makeup of your board...that is, invest in board development?

Definitely. As MY TURN grows and expands, we need to bring on board members who represent the new states we’re now serving. Our board also should reflect our vision for growth and similarly be composed of individuals who have the talents, skills and resources we need both to expand and operate as a much larger organization. Using some excellent outside consultants to help us, we've added seven new members–a 40 percent increase; restructured the board; defined new roles and responsibilities; and revised our by-laws.

What have been the fundraising implications of your growth plan? Have you had success in raising money from other foundations? Has the fact that you have a business plan helped in your fundraising?

With a doubling of our budget has come the need to raise more funds. We have taken a similar approach to fund development as we did to organizational growth and expansion. We began with an analysis of private philanthropic and public support for youth development, and we simultaneously assessed our ability to capitalize on those and other grant opportunities. Having a business plan to show prospective funders has certainly given our grant proposals more credibility and, more importantly, has helped us secure grants from several foundations. Our biggest in recent months is a five-year, $1 million grant from the Richard and Susan Smith Family Foundation. And we've received funding from the Boston Foundation and the Jessie B. Cox Charitable Trust.

How are you monitoring/tracking performance to ensure you are meeting your milestones?

MY TURN has always been diligent about tracking and monitoring performance. Now we’re getting even better at doing that. For instance, our technology and data collection systems have been dramatically improved, and this enables us to collect and make information available in real-time. This allows line staff to review reports, check numbers, and track progress towards outcomes right from their desktop computers. On top of this, we’re continually analyzing and reporting data, such as numbers served and retention rates. In addition, all staff can compare actual results against projections. We also look 6, 9, and 12 months out to gauge how well we are doing forecasting and achieving results.

Have you had to make adjustments in the implementation of your growth plans?

Execution of our business plan is a marriage between opportunity and strategy. For instance, we expanded into a second state, New Hampshire, ahead of plan because funding became available sooner than expected. We also deepened programming in some sites ahead of plan for the same reason. One of the biggest adjustments, however, has been our approach to evaluation. As we learned more about what it takes to do a rigorous evaluation, we realized that our initial strategies and budget were inadequate for what we hoped to achieve in the long run. We have since revised our plan for evaluation. We have embarked upon a plan that includes an initial smaller investment in some analysis of how our sites operate in terms of consistency and the overall fidelity of our model. This study, which is being conducted by the Heller School of Social Policy, is designed to better prepare us for the more rigorous evaluation that is scheduled to begin in the fall of this year. This second phase of evaluation is designed to take a hard look at our participants over a three year period to determine how significantly our model changes the ultimate outcomes of a young person’s life.

Any observations/lessons for other organizations undergoing growth? Any "do’s" or "don'ts?"

Duffy: The development and current execution of the business plan have provided incredible learning experiences for me, my staff, the board, and our community partners. First and foremost, organizations embarking on a growth plan must ensure that everyone in the organization, including board members, can articulate the vision for growth and are in agreement with the plan’s goals and strategies. Then, you must repeat, repeat, repeat the tenets associated with growth. Other than that some do’s are:

• Put a quality senior management team in place.
• Develop and communicate performance metrics.
• Provide staff, especially managers, with tools to help them develop the skills, competencies and leadership that will be needed to sustain quality.
• Have a plan for how you are going to communicate strategically with multiple stakeholders.
• Conduct an environmental scan of your field and community and assess honestly your organization’s ability to grow.
• Push back if too much is being asked of you or you don’t have the tools yet to get the job done.
  
  

Some don'ts include:

• If the organization is moving faster than expected, don’t keep moving at that speed without testing the pulse of the entire organization to make sure everyone is keeping up and no one is burning out.
• Don’t think the entire organization will embrace all changes or at the same time.

Taking the things above to heart, the experiences that MY TURN has gone through the past few years has been challenging at times, but in the end, all of us strongly believe we are a stronger and more effective organization.