Growing pains: CAWS moves through its life-cycle
This past February, I took a couple of vacation days from my “paying job” at High Country News to jump, feet-first, into a pool of reflection and deep analysis. Afterward, my head was swimming but my spirits were high.
Sounds like a great spa day, huh?
Well, not exactly. It was more like sixteen hours at one of the most intense, information-filled seminars that I’ve ever attended.
Pat Gwinn, CAWS’ VP (or VEEP, as she likes to call herself), and I spent two days in the company of other animal rescue friends — including staff and board from Second Chance in Ridgeway and folks from Gunnison Valley Animal Welfare League — where we were attending a seminar, “Raising Funds in Challenging Times.” Presented by Richard Male, a well-known expert on nonprofit fundraising, organizational growth and board leadership, the seminar was a “private” presentation offered to four area animal rescue groups. Animal Assistance Foundation executive director, David Gies and Program Officer, Sarah Timms also attended the training as workshop facilitator’s. (AAF has my ‘thank you’ for providing a majority of the funding for the program.)
Bottom line, the event was an invaluable opportunity for CAWS to network with our animal rescue neighbors and talk about everything from board structure to raising funds in a recession. But the most important thing I took away from the discussions and workshops was the understanding of what is expected of me as president of a well-respected organization — leadership.
Big deal, you say? Wasn’t that clear going into the position? Not really. In the beginning, I focused on revitalizing our foster and adoption program, getting our accounting in order, maintaining our many licenses, overseeing a thrift store, and a myriad of other projects and tasks vital to the management of CAWS.
That’s where Rich nailed me. Management. “Leaders steer, managers execute,” he said. Gads, I thought. I am a control freak who has spent most of my career in management, and now, I was being asked to provide tools, empower others and concentrate on building a sustainable organization that I can pass on to other leaders.
I must have broken out in a cold sweat because “Veep Pat” took my arm and said, “We can do this. Just look at all of the things we’ve done these last few months.”
Pat was right. CAWS has moved into a “transitional point, where the balance between leadership and management changes,” explained Rich in his lesson on the “Life Cycles of the Nonprofit.” Over the last several months, CAWS has put a great deal of emphasis on clarifying its values, empowering its volunteers, developing a strategic business and marketing plan, and building the organization’s infrastructure. These are all signs of an organization growing toward the maturity stage in its natural life cycle.
CAWS has been in a growth stage for several years and in 2009 we realized that our expectations were beginning to exceed our resources of time, people, talent, and money. According to Rich’s analysis of nonprofit growth, this happens to all groups that continue to progress. And CAWS has continued to progress.
My cold sweat clears when I consider the important steps we’ve taken over the past six months. The new board and growing volunteer base are people that have an understanding of the organization’s roots — the community need that generated the original idea — and a passion for the organization’s mission, they also bring a wide variety of talents and skills including banking and finance, marketing and public education, fund raising, nonprofit legalities, and human and media relations.
Further, we’ve hired two part-time managers to oversee our most vital programs. A local CPA and bookkeeper helps with our accounting needs and our board is filled with dedicated professionals all taking on important leadership roles (please visit www.CAWSonline.org/board to learn more about the CAWS BOD).
My head is still spinning but my spirits remain high. CAWS is so dear to my heart…yes, it’s a living thing to me and I am bound to nurture and grow it, as I do my own family. CAWS will continue well into the future — well past my lifetime.
JoAnn Kalenak
President