Big Brothers Big Sisters Lone Star (Greater Dallas) (BBBS-LS)
Planning for a future of growth with Big Brothers Big Sisters
While Big Brothers Big Sisters Lone Star (BBBSLS) has been a leader in youth and teen mentoring services and programming in Dallas for more than 95 years, they are committed to innovation that adapts to the current needs of youth. Following the pandemic, the team wanted to reimagine ways of working with other nonprofits to serve school-age children in need of mentoring. Additionally, BBBSLS recently sold its office building in Las Colinas, so they needed to consider both long- and short-term strategies to maintain a physical and virtual connection with the communities they serve.
Our perspective:
M. Gale developed a unique consulting service approach for BBBSLS Greater Dallas’ leadership, staff, and advisory board members to analyze, assess, and build a collaborative plan to create a new strategy for growth and monitor the plan progress.
Another unique part of our perspective is our Chief Operating Officer Barb Shelton’s experience with BBBS – both as a Big Sister and as a program director, developing one of the first school-based mentoring programs nationally!
How we solved the challenge:
For four months, we gathered information via surveys, interviews, and data analysis. We developed a written five-year strategy for BBBSLS that included overall and annual goals, and objectives to align staff and volunteer leadership.
We worked with staff and volunteer leaders to make the most of their experience and knowledge to get a good understanding of the agency and help them envision their future.
We identified what was needed to help them grow in three areas: professional talent retention, volunteer recruitment/programming, and fundraising.
The M. Gale team prepared the BBBSLS team to understand, advocate, and support the organization, developing a strong internal direction for the future and helping them feel like they are important to BBBSLS’ growth.
A dashboard and report were developed to serve as a road map for implementation and used to monitor progress quarterly.
M. Gale meets with the BBBS Lone Star implementation team regularly to coach and check in on plan milestones.
Our client’s outcome:
“The work M. Gale led with BBBSLS Greater Dallas staff and boards created a simple, yet effective set of goals and strategies to sustain a strong culture, serve more youth, and ensure the mission thrives into its next century of service. Our staff and board members operate with a common language and unified vision for success. This synergy has led us to more than double our corporate and community partners, we are building reserved funds to increase financial stability, and our staff/board relationships are thriving!”
