No Margin, No Mission
Read Partners supports organizations and their leaders who seek a stronger balance sheet and greater impact without sacrificing one for the other.
Structure
Reorganizing to solve a problem rarely works; problem analysis first can lead to the efficiency you seek.
Governance & Management
Align the formal and informal leaders of your organization or movement around a common agenda.
Strategy
Move from ‘road maps’ to GPS with simpler language, clear priorities and constant updates on ‘road conditions’.
Sustained Results
Outputs are not outcomes: there are tools and methods for achieving lasting results that don’t involve rocket science.
Need help to make change for good?
Margin vs Mission
Organizations in the twenty-first century cannot retain their best people or in some cases even survive unless they bring these conflicting values into balance. Corporate responsibility, effective philanthropy and community engagement are no less essential to a business than making money is to a non-profit, if either is to achieve high performance.
FINANCIAL CHALLENGES
If you are experiencing fundraising or financial challenges, we have lead local and national fundraising that has raised in excess of $500 million.
ACCOUNTING ISSUES
If the arcane aspects of non-profit GAAP accounting appear to conflict with cash management, we have 20 years’ experience in reconciling the differences.
Structure
Reorganization should be a last resort. The root cause of underperformance is more often found in the ‘weeds’ of organization culture, business process and individual mindset. Care needs to be taken ahead of restructuring in order to ensure that the dislocation and disruption are worth it.
INTEGRATION
If you see mission/business opportunities through collaboration, joint venture or merger, we have merged five non-profits, purchased and integrated six stand-alone businesses and facilitated countless community collaborations.
RESTRUCTURING
If reorganization is a necessity due to cost constraints or people issues, we can help with the diagnostics and implementation to assure that your objectives are met.
Governance & Management
Non-profit boards can prove disengaged, and for-profit boards excessively ‘collegial’ in acquitting their fiduciary responsibilities, especially when choosing their leaders and holding them to account. Solutions to governance and senior management issues often benefit from the involvement of a third party as mediator.
LEADERSHIP
If as a board you have hard choices to make during a management transition and need interim leadership, we have 25 years of CEO-level experience navigating global, national and regional organizations, large and small, through tough times.
TRANSITION
If reorganization is a necessity due to cost constraints or people issues, we can help with the diagnostics and implementation to assure that your objectives are met.
Strategy
Strategic planning through board and staff retreats, cross-functional teams and priority setting can be invaluable. Yet, more often than not, both the process itself and the plan that emerges prove to be time-wasting and of little value. If your strategy for optimizing Mission and Margin is longer than 1-2 pages, you have work to do.
NOTEBOOK-ON-A-SHELF
If your organization strategy is either non-existent or gathering dust, we have developed and executed successful strategies across all three sectors.
ALIGNMENT
If your board and management team are not clear or not aligned on what you believe to be your organization’s Theory of Change (TOC), an effective strategy for optimizing Mission and Margin will not be possible until they are – and we can help with that.
ENGAGEMENT
If you are concerned about the level of engagement you can expect in strategic planning from a board with little time to invest or a staff with competing interests, we can help to facilitate the most effective and productive use of their time.
Sustained Results
Continuous Improvement, Six Sigma, CQI, etc. are the buzzwords of the Age and the relative simplicity of what they entail can be lost in the jargon consultants use to differentiate themselves. Distinguishing outputs from outcomes, prioritizing results and using data for improvement doesn’t have to be complicated so long as the culture is right and the leadership committed.
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
If you’ve ‘been there-done that’ with continuous improvement programs in the past and without success, the impediments are generally found in “culture” and leadership which we can help diagnose and address.
ANALYTICS
If your team is either overwhelmed by too much data or stymied by too little, we have over 30 years’ experience in the analytics that drive improvement.
SYSTEMS CHANGE
If your organization or your philanthropy confront complex systems issues, we have tools and methods available to intervene in ways that can improve outcomes.
Why Read Partners?
We bring cross-sector operations experience at the senior management and board level to the work of balancing mission and margin.
John Read has held CEO assignments with three regional, national and global non-profit organizations, a $400 million for-profit company and presidential and gubernatorial appointments.
On a selective basis, Read Partners will work with organization or community leadership at the senior level to resolve complex managerial and social sector issues that impede continuous improvement and impact.