Beth Chandler and YW Boston Featured on Bridgespan Blog
The Bridgespan Group featured Beth Chandler and YW Boston in their November 2018 blog post, “Two Signs that Your Strategy Needs a Refresh.” YW Boston has been working with The Bridgespan Group on redefining the organization’s focus over the past year. The Bridgepsan Group’s mission is to “build a better world by strengthening the ability of mission-driven organizations and philanthropists to achieve breakthrough results in addressing society’s most important challenges and opportunities.”
The blog post speaks about the internal and external factors that contributed to YW Boston working to redefine our focus:
“For the Boston YWCA, a mix of internal and external signs emerged, compelling its leadership team to revisit the organization’s strategy. First, the CEO of 10 years retired—a turning point in the organization that allowed it to hone its strategy to focus on where the organization could have the greatest influence. “Over time, our program portfolio grew—we had six programs, seven depending on how you counted one of them—and we realized we weren’t able to have the impact we wanted in the city because we had such a disparate portfolio,” President and CEO Beth Chandler shared in a recent interview (see the interview below).
Second, Chandler and her team recognized that the external political climate created an opportunity to generate greater support. “Given all that is going on now in our country, we felt that we should be at the forefront of a lot of these issues and we were getting lost because it was hard to say who we were and what we were doing given all that we were doing.” Gaining greater clarity on its work enabled the organization to have better messaging when talking with potential funders and supporters.”
Beth is also featured in a Youtube video further describing YW Boston’s process: