Case Study: Ensuring Stability During Leadership Transition
Challenge
A nonprofit dedicated to humanitarian advocacy and cultural integration faced a period of key leadership transition and turnover. It required immediate external operational expertise to maintain continuity, manage daily strategic operations, stabilize the team, navigate essential executive transitions and prepare the organization for new permanent executive leadership.
Solution
The Board of Directors engaged Mission Mappers’ Christine Davis to serve as a fractional Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Chief of Staff for a 16-month period. This partnership focused on providing essential operational and team stability, maintaining daily operations while supporting a seamless executive transition.
Through close collaboration with the Board and team leaders, Mission Mappers facilitated several key initiatives.
Strategic & Operational Management: Mission Mappers served as the liaison to leadership, managing daily strategic operations and offering strategic recommendations to the Board and Board Executive Committee.
Human Resources Management: Addressed HR priorities, collaborating with team leaders to implement performance management processes (annual reviews, performance improvement plans and 90-day check-ins for new employees), mediating team challenges and training team leaders in people management best practices.
Financial & Process Optimization: Partnered with the grants team to positively impact the budget through grant utilization optimization, formalized a new program development strategy and process and implemented new collaboration platforms across the organization.
Team & Culture-Building: Worked alongside the board and team leaders stabilizing the team through various leadership transitions, increasing morale through structured team-building activities and mentoring staff where direct management was absent.
Leadership Transition & Onboarding: Managed the onboarding process for both an interim and the new, permanent Executive Director, including creating a collaborative 90-day onboarding plan and initial focus recommendations for the incoming ED.
Results & Impact
The collaborative engagement successfully navigated this major metropolitan nonprofit through a critical period oftransition, leaving the organization operationally robust and stable for its new leadership, accomplishing:
Financial Health: Identified and secured the utilization of $270K in grant funds, which were unallocated as a result of the leadership transition.
Team Stability & Morale: Stabilized the 20-person team following turnover of key personnel, leading to increased morale and a more cohesive culture.
Process Maturity: Mission Mappers implemented essential HR infrastructure, including a formalized annual performance review process and strategic planning recommendations for new program development.
Successful Leadership Transition: Ensured a seamless transition between interim and permanent executive directors, concluding the role successfully once the new ED was fully onboarded and operational.
Conclusion
The fractional COO/Chief of Staff engagement provided critical, flexible leadership precisely when this major metropolitan nonprofit organization needed it most. By partnering with the team to manage immediate operational demands and implement foundational processes, Mission Mappers ensured continuity, stabilized the organization and positioned it for future success under its new, permanent leadership.
