Q: What are the benefits of coaching?
A: A nonprofit should be stronger, more resilient, stable and agile after working with a coach. The bottom line should show improvement. Performance metrics should show programmatic growth. These improvements make an organization more attractive as a program or marketing partner, more appealing to current and potential donors and better positioned to actualize grants. Coaching also helps build confidence and harness the nonprofit’s passion into a powerful tool for doing good and achieving its mission.
Q: What motivates an organization to undertake organizational coaching?
A: There are as many reasons for finding a coach as there are organizations. However, there are some recurring themes. For some nonprofits, coaching is an opportunity to improve their performance, avoid mistakes and accelerate their growth. An organization transitioning from local operations to state or national operations would greatly benefit from the coach’s experience and understanding of programmatic upscaling.
Other motivating themes include changes in organizational direction, intervention by the board of directors, operational or leadership crises, competition and shifts in the operational landscape (i.e. state government stops providing a service making your organization the sole provider of that service for a large population or area).
Q: How does the coaching process work?
A: Organizational coaching is collaborative, supportive, encouraging, motivating, and positive. It is personalized to the needs and goals of the nonprofit. Coaching adds value to the organization’s mission and its bottom line. Organizational coaching is NOT judgmental, condemning, or degrading. Coaching is about actualizing a dream.
The Coaching Process
1. Conversation focusing on goals and aspirations, challenges and fears
2. Assess current strengths, weaknesses, assets and challenges
3. Work together to construct a personalized plan for success
4. Execute the plan
5. Monitor progress
6. Celebrate achievements
When completed, the organization should be stronger, more resilient, stable and agile. It should also be a more vibrant and exciting place to work.
Q: What’s the skinny on Skip?
A: Skip stepped down as ZERO–The End of Prostate Cancer’s, Chief Executive Officer in March 2013 to assist with a family business in upstate New York. He lent his leadership skills to ZERO for 13 years, serving five of those as CEO. Most recently Skip served as ZERO’s Chairman of the Board.
Before working at ZERO, Skip was a consultant specializing in constructing diverse technology coalitions (Digital Future Coalition, 4Cite and Databasedata). These coalitions were created to address the complex issues related to shrink-wrap software licensing, data ownership, and ratification of the World Intellectual Property Organization treaties. In consultation with nationally prominent intellectual property experts, Skip testified before Congress, addressed the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and served as the coalition representative before multiple state legislatures. He regularly appeared in Forbes Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Wired and many other online and traditional media outlets.
Skip has an MA in American Government from the Johns Hopkins University and a BA in Oxbridge Institutions and Policies from William Jewell College.
Skip loves adventure. He is a sailor, having raced throughout the Chesapeake Bay and participated in the Annapolis to Newport sailing race. He has completed 100 mile and 88K ultramarathons, multiple traditional marathons, adventure races and endurance activities including the GORUCK Challenge and the GORUCK Heavy. Skip is an active member of the Endurance Society and will participate in the Extremus event this year.