To reach AFB’s full potential and move our mission forward, the AFB Trustees and leadership team recognized in FY2024 that our pathway to success would come through leveraging the diverse range of talent and skills distributed across the organization. This talent would be the building blocks for our success, and the mortar that would fuse everything together would be found in the process improvements introduced and implemented during FY2024.
The blueprint for process and workplace improvements was extremely timely, as AFB was entering the strategic planning process at the start of the fiscal year.
“Our last strategic plan was over six years old,” said Eric Bridges, AFB president and CEO. “A lot has happened at AFB during that time, and it was clear that amidst the changes in programs, there would need to be a major focus placed on our internal operations.”
“A key question we asked ourselves was how could we shape new ways of working in order to better leverage our staff’s deep knowledge, skills, and dedication to mission,” said Sonya Shiflet, AFB’s chief operating officer. “By transforming our tools, systems, and processes, we have accomplished so much more in far less time than we would have previously.”
Focusing on AFB’s core values of leadership, excellence, collaboration, and impact, the leadership team at AFB mapped out a blueprint to guide the newly adopted business operating system, which was rolled out in tandem with the strategic plan development.
In FY2024, AFB adopted a management system called System & Soul (S2), which is popular among entrepreneurs and start-ups that often have substantial goals with limited bandwidth. S2 has significantly helped AFB's leadership team clearly articulate the long-range goals spelled out in the strategic plan and establish a set of directions capable of achieving these goals through realistic milestones that span the entire organization.
The AFB leadership team was restructured to focus heavily on operations to foster momentum across the organization. In the fourth quarter of FY2024, the Business Services, Communications, and Human Resources departments were brought under the umbrella of Operations, which also established a Project Management office. The latter ensures that projects will not be siloed within the organization.
In addition, rigorous project planning, transparency, and improved tracking, documentation, and cross-organizational communications will keep projects on track and enable us to work through the bottlenecks often found in nonprofits with limited resources and bandwidth.
During the fourth quarter of FY2024, Sonya Shiflet transitioned from Chief People and Planning Officer to Chief Operations Officer.
“With over 30 years managing human capital at AFB, her experience was just what we needed to make sure that collaboration and knowledge-sharing could be deployed in ways that empower each and every member of AFB,” said Bridges. Shiflet added, “Our new direction is exciting, and I’m inspired every day by the impact we are able to make with our small but mighty team.”
Access the new strategic plan at www.afb.org/strategic-plan.
