2018 Annual Report

ADVANCED
LEADERSHIP
PROGRAM
Who will be the next leaders for Boys & Girls Clubs
of Skagit County? Staff & Board members travel
to Portland to participate Boys & Girls Clubs of
America’s week-long Advanced Leadership Program.
by Evan Greenlaw, Development Coordinator, BGCSC
As a Club organization, I can say that the Boys & Girls
Clubs of Skagit County really stands out amongst
regional peer organizations in terms of visionary
leadership and commitment to excellence in serving
kids and teens in Skagit County. Being recognized for
our values & diversity is pretty cool, as well. But I’ll get back
to that.
In November, the leadership team from your Skagit Club
organization convened in Portland with other Club organizations
from Washington and Oregon for a week-long retreat
devoted to leadership development called the Advanced
Leadership Program (ALP). Fresh off the record success of
an incredible 2018 Great Futures Gala, Skagit Clubs’ CEO
Ron McHenry, Board Chair Holly Shannon, Associate Executive
Director Ian Faley, Director of Operations Manny Smith,
Director of Marketing & Stewardship Tammy Findlay, and
I came together to discuss, debate, define & develop our
Annual Campaign renewal project. The Annual Campaign
is the basis for providing the significant funds it takes to
provide high-quality Club programming to our 1,800+ Members
across Skagit County. Because the Clubs serve at the
pleasure of our community, we can’t do our work without
you, and we’re dedicated to growing that support in order to
make sure that we can eventually serve every kid in Skagit
County who wants to be a Boys & Girls Club Member.
What is leadership? Before I talk about the intensive work
(and fun!) we engaged in, the key takeaways from our ALP
experience and how those will impact your Clubs and our
Members’ experiences, it’s important to know what we
mean when we talk about being a leader. It’s not about
directing & managing, though these are components of
leadership. It’s not about getting people to do things. It’s
about helping them succeed as professionals & individuals.
The keys to leadership lie in five principles: leaders must
Model the Way, by establishing principles and standards;
they must Inspire a Shared Vision, by communicating
effectively & equitably; they must Challenge the Process,
finding inefficiencies & innovating to improve even successful
operations; they must Enable Others to Act, by inspiring
& strengthening others with mutual respect & dignity; and
they must Encourage the Heart, by recognizing individual
contributions to a collective endeavor.
MODEL THE WAY
Benchmarking
Benchmarking policies & procedures is a critical process
to success in change management. Just as leaders must
Model the Way for their staff, an organization looking to
improve must look to other leaders for best practices. For us,
benchmarking is broadly implemented: we cannot compare
ourselves to other non-profit organizations alone, but businesses
of all kinds. In addition to learning best practices from
some of our compatriot organizations, such as strategies for
communicating with the Board of Directors or planning &
scheduling tools, we also have to look at what other leaders
are doing—and sometimes, this means finding inspiration
from unlikely sources, as Ron, Holly, & Tammy discovered
when they used their night off to visit Darcelle XV, a local
drag cabaret hosted by an 82-year old Korean War veteran.
INSPIRE A SHARED VISION
A Teachable Point of View
Effective collaboration requires commonalities amongst
differences, bringing diverse talents and views together for
a common good. This is one area where the leadership of
the Skagit Clubs really stands out. Diversity comes in many
shapes, sizes, and flavors, and this is something we exemplify
in Administration, Club Leadership, and program staff.
It’s something we’re proud of, and something our community
can also take pride in. A teachable point of view is simply
the combination of Ideas to define goals, Values to dictate
process, Emotional Energy to connect, inspire, and encourage,
and an Edge, because sometimes hard decisions
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