Strategy Client Spotlight
NeighborWorks Home Partners (NWHP) helps people buy, fix, and keep their homes. Michael Anderson Consulting (MAC) helps nonprofits pursue big ideas for social change. Together, we worked on developing a strategy for NWHP’s next stage of organizational growth and mission impact.
The team at MAC recently caught up with NeighborWorks Home Partners to check in on how their Strategic Framework and Implementation Plan, finalized six months ago, has been serving them on their trajectory of growth.
NeighborWorks Home Partners (NWHP), a chartered member of the NeighborWorks network and a full-service NeighborWorks America HomeOwnership Center, helps families in Saint Paul, Minneapolis, and all around the Twin Cities metro area be successful homeowners. Our team was delighted to facilitate NWHP’s strategy development process as it planned to enhance its mission-focused work by focusing on three strategic priorities:
Flexible Capital: Increase the independent, flexible resources available to the organization and its customers;
Innovation: Offer flexible and customized solutions that address customers’ barriers to homeownership; and
Public Policy: Address homeownership barriers at the system level through field leadership and policy change.
One particular theme in our recent conversation with CEO, Jason Peterson, was the utility of having a clear strategic direction, even—or especially—in the midst of unpredictable external forces that challenge the expectations of a linear plan.
NWHP has deep technical expertise and experience using a breadth of tools and approaches to support homeownership. MAC helped NWHP hone in on these unique strengths, defining a clear strategic direction. With its depth of experience, NWHP can lead in surfacing innovative solutions (e.g., fee-based mortgages, manufactured homes financing) that address customers’ specific barriers to homeownership. And because it is well known in the field for this ability, NWHP has a growing voice in policy conversations. Through the strategy development process, NWHP formalized its intent to continue and deepen this field leadership role, using its direct experience working with customers to inform the policy conversations that will affect its customers.
“Our work with the Michael Anderson Consulting Team continues to live on. As we adapt to challenges of uncertainty, I can get back to the foundation of what we’re trying to get to, which is reflected in the Framework and Plan. It’s not just a document.”-Jason Peterson, NeighborWorks Home Partners
The organization, already a key contributor in the local housing advocacy ecosystem, has successfully positioned priority programs identified in its Strategic Framework, but their launch depends on the timing of public funds and contracts. When new public programs don’t roll out as expected, the organizations providing the services and anticipating the funding need to adapt. Although Jason named this as a challenge, he also shared that they are still maintaining momentum: “I’ve used the Framework and Plan to raise funds from mostly philanthropic sources to help us fill the gap.” This includes, for example, a pending request for PRI funds (a Program Related Investment, or essentially a loan) to provide working capital to fuel growth during uncertainty.
NWHP is actively using not only the Framework and Plan, but other ancillary tools and materials that came out of the strategy development process.
The staff and board have already reached for the agreed-upon set of decision-making criteria developed as part of the Framework to assess new opportunities;
The leadership team has used a “mission-money” Sustainability Matrix tool to prioritize mission-critical hires while in anticipation of securing the expected funding;
Jason also consulted this Sustainability Matrix, developed through MAC’s financial deep dive, to make a stronger case to funders for the true costs of closing a loan; and
Staff drew heavily from the Framework and Plan to develop a program-specific business plan that was a condition of funding for new work on manufactured home ownership financing.
“I hired staff and fundraised for staff, and that’s just what had to happen to get ahead of it. There’s nothing we planned on that we’re not moving forward. We’re getting prepared, doing what we can do.”-Jason Peterson, NeighborWorks Home Partners
The organization is proving its ability to adapt to uncertainty. But change is still difficult, especially for staff responsible for navigating the day-to-day when progress is not always linear. Asked if, looking back, he might do anything differently in the strategy development process, Jason said that carving out additional MAC time with a broad group of staff would have given them the opportunity to have more questions answered along the way and gain greater confidence in the path ahead.
Next on NWHP’s path is stepping more into its public policy role. It is already seen and looked to as a key partner and knowledgeable voice in this space, and this is something the organization is poised to lean into. Perhaps we’ll talk more about this with Jason and his staff in a follow up post.