Hi Colleagues and Friends,

Welcome to the latest edition of Volution Viewpoint.

One of the things I enjoy most about our work is that every engagement teaches us something new. Whether we're facilitating a nonprofit merger or strategic plan, helping a family think strategically about its philanthropy, designing a performance management system, or convening organizations around a complex community challenge, we are constantly learning alongside remarkable leaders. We are so grateful.

This edition reflects some of these lessons.

You'll find practical ideas for making performance management more meaningful, rethinking mergers as a proactive strategy rather than a last resort, strengthening philanthropic decision-making, and leading effective cross-sector collaborations during times of uncertainty. While the topics are different, they all point to the same conclusion: lasting impact rarely comes from a single decision or organization. It comes from clear strategy, thoughtful leadership, strong partnerships, and a willingness to learn and adapt.

Our hope is that these articles are more than updates on our work. We hope they provide practical ideas you can adapt within your own organization and spark conversations that strengthen the broader social sector. 

We'd love to hear what resonates and what other articles would be helpful to you and your organization. Please email me with your ideas and requests. 

As always, thank you for the opportunity to learn with you and from you. 

With gratitude,

Jacquelyn Davis
Managing Partner

SPOTLIGHT: Organizational Effectiveness Practice

Performance Management Is a Continuous Process, Not an Event

Over the past year, we have worked with a cohort of social impact CEOs and several organizations to strengthen their performance management systems. One lesson emerged consistently: performance management works best when it is simple, transparent, and continuous.

Too often, organizations over-engineer performance management. Team members do not need feedback across 18 different dimensions. In our experience, the strongest systems focus on a few clear goals, a few meaningful growth opportunities, and ongoing feedback throughout the year.

Most importantly, performance management should begin at the start of the year, not at the annual review. Employees should understand what success looks like, where they are expected to grow, and how they will be evaluated. As we often say, clarity is kindness.

A Simple Performance Management Cycle

The cycle above reflects a simple but effective approach: establish expectations early, provide ongoing feedback throughout the year, and use informal reviews as a reflection point.

From Principles to Practice

Organizations often assume performance management requires complex competency models, lengthy review forms, and dozens of evaluation criteria. In our experience, the opposite is true. The most effective systems are often the simplest.

We encourage leaders to focus on four core components:

Together, these four elements provide a balanced view of performance, what someone accomplished, how they are developing, how they contribute to the organization, and how they view their own growth.

To help organizations put these ideas into practice, we've included a simple performance management template below that can be adapted for organizations of any size.

Key Lessons from the Field

• Keep performance management simple. Most people cannot effectively absorb feedback across dozens of competencies.
• Start with role clarity and expectations. Strong performance management begins with clear job descriptions, expectations, and goals.
• Focus on growth, not just evaluation. Limiting development priorities to 2–3 meaningful areas creates more progress than trying to improve everything at once. Strong organizations create a culture of ongoing growth where all team members are trying to build their strengths. 
• Start with self-assessment. Some of the most valuable insight for a manager is understanding how an employee views their own performance.
• Use evidence, not assumptions. Concrete examples and observations lead to more productive conversations and are based in data rather than perceptions.
• Make feedback continuous and two-way. The annual review should summarize a year's worth of conversations, not introduce new information. We always say, "There should not be any surprises at evaluation time."  Employees need to know where they stand, what they are doing well, and areas for improvement or growth.

• Provide opportunities for growth. Performance management is most effective when employees are given the support, coaching, job embedded opportunities,and resources needed to improve.

Clarity is kindness. When expectations are clear and feedback is ongoing, performance reviews become opportunities for growth rather than moments of surprise.

RESOURCES

• Watch: Jerry Hauser on Managing to Change the World (Passcode: 9!&N4@8c)
• The Management Center Resources

Practice Lead: Nataki Reynolds

Rethinking M&A in the Social Sector

One of the most common misconceptions we encounter is that mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are only appropriate when an organization is in financial distress.

At Volution, we challenge this narrative. Increasingly, we are seeing that the strongest M&A conversations begin not when organizations are in crisis, but when leaders are proactively considering how to strengthen impact, navigate leadership transitions, and build long-term sustainability.

As nonprofits and schools face funding uncertainty, growing community needs, and increasing expectations from funders, organizational consolidation is becoming a viable strategic option.

Organizations often explore M&A when they are seeking to:

• Reduce duplicative administrative and operational costs
• Strengthen long-term financial sustainability
• Navigate leadership succession and organizational transitions
• Expand reach and deepen community impact
• Combine complementary expertise, programs, and talent

From our experience, successful mergers are rooted in:

• Strong mission and values alignment
• Transparent financial due diligence
• Cultural compatibility across teams
• A clear focus on community impact
• Leadership willing to prioritize mission over organizational identity

The question for boards and CEOs is shifting from "How do we remain independent?" to "How do we best serve our communities?" When approached thoughtfully, M&A is not a sign of failure—it is often an act of strategic leadership, ensuring that mission, talent, and impact can endure and grow in an increasingly complex environment.

RESOURCES

• Watch our M&A Webinar: M&A 101 Nonprofit Edition (Passcode: Lqap9%7.)
• Read our Blog: Is a Merger or Acquisition Worth Exploring for Your Organization? A Guide for Nonprofit Leaders

IN THE FIELD

Philanthropic Advisory Practice

Our Take & What We’re Learning

Across our Philanthropic Advisory Practice, we are currently partnering with several family foundations at pivotal moments in their philanthropic journeys. While each family brings unique goals, values, and circumstances, a common thread is a desire to translate philanthropic intent into long-term impact.

Some families are refining and strengthening established giving priorities through multi-year investment strategies, while others are considering significant shifts in focus areas and approaches. We are also supporting new philanthropists following recent liquidity events as they explore foundational questions around purpose, risk tolerance, grantmaking strategies, organizational preferences, and the role philanthropy will play in their legacy. At the same time, several long-standing family foundations are navigating leadership transitions across generations, creating opportunities to engage new voices while maintaining alignment around shared values and goals.

Through this work, several lessons continue to emerge:

• Engaging rising generations early creates meaningful opportunities for learning, ownership, and long-term commitment to a family's philanthropic vision.

• Clarity of intent, both individual and collective, provides a strong foundation for effective decision-making and strategic investment.

• Sustaining alignment across family members and generations requires ongoing dialogue, thoughtful governance, and a willingness to embrace evolving perspectives while remaining anchored in shared purpose.

As more philanthropists seek to balance legacy, impact, and family engagement, we continue to see the value of intentional planning, facilitated learning, and structured decision-making processes that help families navigate complexity and maximize the impact of their giving.

RESOURCES

• Watch What the Rise of Individual Donors Means for Nonprofits with Jen Holleran
• Explore Education and Thriving Youth Navigator Map

  By Purposeful Giving (led by Jen Holleran & Becky Crowe)

  We're excited to spotlight a valuable resource from Purposeful Giving, an initiative led by Jen Holleran and Becky Crowe, that helps donors navigate the education landscape with greater clarity and confidence.

  Created with leading education experts from across the country, the Education & Thriving Youth Navigator Map introduces key issue areas, investment opportunities, and practical pathways for strategic, high-impact philanthropy.

  We encourage you to explore and download this free resource to help guide your philanthropic journey

• Watch Preparing Your Nonprofit for the Largest Wealth Transfer in History
  Watch the webinar to explore the trends transforming philanthropy and gain practical strategies to maximize individual giving, manage complex assets, cultivate principal gifts, and position your organization for this unprecedented opportunity.

Practice Co-Leads: Jacquelyn Davis & Nicky Goren

Strategy Practice

(Left) Scott Kratz, President & CEO at Building Bridges Across the River; Jacquelyn Davis, Managing Partner at Volution Advisors; George Jones, CEO at Bread for the City; Judith Sandalow, CEO at Children's Law Center; Alexander Moore, Chief Development Officer at DC Central Kitchen; Naseema Shafi, CEO at Whitman-Walker Health (Right)

Collaborating in Times of Need: Six Lessons for Leading Cross-Sector Collaboration During Times of Crisis

When new Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) eligibility requirements threatened to disrupt benefits for thousands of District residents, leaders from some of Washington's most impactful nonprofit organizations came together to chart a path forward.

Each organization serves the community in different ways, but together, they bring deep expertise across food security, housing, healthcare, workforce development, and economic opportunity. They also recognized that SNAP changes were not an isolated event. Additional federal policy changes affecting Medicaid, housing assistance, and other safety-net programs were set to follow.

The nonprofit CEOs committed to developing a shared strategy. Volution Advisors designed and facilitated a structured planning process that brought together the CEOs, frontline staff, funders, and public-sector partners to understand the challenges, identify opportunities, clarify roles, and develop coordinated recommendations. The process balanced immediate response with longer-term systems thinking—recognizing that while families needed solutions today, the city also needed stronger pathways toward economic mobility for the future.

One of the most important lessons emerged early in the process: the strongest strategies combine CEO perspective with frontline experience. The nonprofit CEOs brought systems-level thinking, strategic judgment, and deep knowledge of their organizations and communities. Frontline case managers, those working directly with residents every day, brought equally essential insight into how policy changes would affect families day-to-day. Together, those perspectives produced recommendations that were both ambitious and grounded, based on a deep understanding of the community.

While every community faces different challenges, several lessons from this collaboration may be useful for other cross-sector efforts.

1. Invest in relationships before a crisis.

Collaboration is built on trust, and trust cannot be created overnight.

Many of these organizations had partnered during the COVID-19 pandemic, creating relationships that allowed them to move quickly when new challenges emerged. Existing trust accelerated decision-making, while clear communication, transparency, and feedback strengthened the work over time.

Takeaway: Build relationships before they are urgently needed.

2. Design the process—not just the plan.

Bringing organizations together is not the same as creating collaboration.

Effective partnerships require a process that helps participants build a shared understanding of the problem, surface different perspectives, set priorities, clarify roles, and make decisions together. Strong facilitation creates the conditions for collective leadership rather than competition.

Takeaway: Collaboration needs structure, not just goodwill.

3. Bring frontline voices into strategy discussions.

The people closest to the work often have the clearest understanding of where systems break down and how community members will be affected day-to-day.

Frontline caseworker sessions surfaced implementation challenges, policy barriers, and practical solutions that might otherwise have been missed. Their first-hand knowledge of the community made the strategy stronger, more realistic, and more actionable.

Takeaway: Strategy is better when it is informed by the people who will help implement it and those most impacted by it.

4. Align around complementary strengths.

Effective collaboration does not require every organization to do the same work.

The group identified where each organization could contribute its unique expertise while advancing a shared vision. Clear roles reduced duplication, strengthened coordination, and allowed each organization to contribute to something larger than its individual work.

Takeaway: The goal is alignment and coherence – and unique contribution by each organization – that together is more effective. 

5. Give funders a strategy—not just a list of needs.

Funders are often asked to respond to multiple urgent requests at once.

A coordinated strategy with clear investment opportunities, expected outcomes, and defined organizational roles made it easier for funders to see where additional resources could have the greatest impact. At the same time, the group emphasized that collaborative investments should complement, not replace, ongoing support for the organizations doing the work every day.

Takeaway: Funders can move faster when the field presents a clear, collective plan.

6. Use crises to strengthen systems.

Immediate needs matter. But crises also create opportunities to improve how systems work.

The Working Group looked beyond emergency food assistance to workforce development, policy implementation, economic mobility, and cross-sector coordination. For example, while expanding volunteer opportunities could have helped some residents meet short-term SNAP work requirements, the group concluded that investing in workforce pathways leading to quality employment would produce more durable outcomes for families and stronger returns on public and philanthropic investment.

Takeaway: The best crisis response addresses urgent needs while building toward long-term change.

Perhaps the most valuable outcome was not a single recommendation, but a stronger way of working together. The relationships, planning structures, and shared understanding developed through this process are already helping organizations prepare for future policy changes affecting Medicaid, housing, and other critical supports.

Complex social challenges rarely fit within organizational boundaries. Addressing them requires trusted relationships, disciplined collaboration, systems-thinking, and a willingness to look beyond immediate problems toward long-term change. When those conditions are in place, collaboration becomes more than coordination. It becomes a catalyst for lasting impact.

"Too often, collaborations stop at information sharing. This process helped us make decisions together, define our respective roles, and build a strategy stronger than anything any one organization could have developed alone. Volution helped create both the structure and the strategy we needed to move forward."

— Scott Kratz, President & CEO, Building Bridges Across the River

Practice Lead: Ali Fuller

Announcing our New Academic Practice

Our Academic Practice bridges the gap between rigorous school diagnostics and sustainable, on-the-ground improvement.  With deep experience in small- to large-scale systems innovation, we also provide assessments and action planning to launch or improve central office (district and CMO) divisions such as Special Education and Innovative Schools initiatives. Our work is never just about compliance, it's about changing student outcomes and life trajectories.  

We partner with district and charter leaders to navigate high-stakes moments, from scaling complex charter networks to leading comprehensive school turnarounds, with a focus on actionable, results-oriented roadmaps. We bring deep, hands-on experience to every engagement, ensuring that strategy translates into meaningful, long-term outcomes for students, families, and communities. We often extend our work to coaching and leadership development to carry out these strategies and action plans.

• Strategic Growth & Right-Sizing: For some school districts and charter organizations, scaling and growth planning is the right path. For others facing declining enrollment, assessing these trends, planning for shifts, and knowing how to work thoughtfully and intentionally with the community is what's needed.
   
• Organizational Vision & Plan: Three- to five-year strategic blueprints for organizations to set the course, align the organizational chart and team structure, and establish budgets accordingly. 
   
• Program Implementation: Specialized planning to drive school-level performance during program and curriculum shifts or new model launches. 
   
• School Turnaround: Comprehensive, data-informed turnaround models and action-planning that include school diagnostics, best practice recommendations, and plans for change management and capacity-building. 
   
• Sustainability: Developing robust educator recruitment pipelines and financial sustainability frameworks. Designing retention models and performance management systems. Aligning budgets to strategic plans. 

Our Academic Practice is led by Melissa Kim and Nataki Reynolds, whose combined experience spans classroom teaching, school leadership, district and state system leadership, charter school growth, school turnaround, nonprofit management, philanthropy, and national education consulting. Together, they have spent their careers helping schools and education systems improve outcomes for students while building the leadership capacity needed to sustain long-term change.

Melissa most recently served as a senior leader at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and previously was a Partner at NewSchools Venture Fund's DC Schools Fund. She served as Deputy Chancellor for Academics at DC Public Schools, including reopening schools safely through the COVID pandemic and continuing the academic gains made prior to the school shutdown.  As the Chief Academic Officer at KIPP DC, she improved school performance and built leader capacity. Melissa has led academic strategy at every level of the education system—from individual schools to national philanthropy. As principal of an underperforming DC middle school, she led a comprehensive turnaround by overhauling staffing, launching the District's first International Baccalaureate middle school program, and doubling student enrollment during her tenure. She has also coached charter school networks and leadership teams across the country to strengthen instructional quality, accelerate school improvement, and improve academic performance.

Nataki most recently served as CEO of CT3 Education, a national leadership and teacher development organization serving K–12 schools in 35 states. In that role, she led the organization's strategic direction, including content development, client partnerships, business growth, and organizational culture. Previously, she served as Chief Academic Officer for Tennessee's Achievement School District, where she helped lead one of the nation's most ambitious school improvement efforts, and as Leadership Development Director for DC Public Schools, where she developed and supported school leaders across the district. She was the founding prinicpal of a charter school and worked on the leadership team at New Leaders. Throughout her career, Nataki has focused on developing exceptional leaders, strengthening instructional systems, and helping schools achieve sustained improvement.

Co-Leads: Melissa Kim and Nataki Reynolds Gregory

Welcome, Our Newest Partner

Curious about how Volution works or wondering whether we're the right partner for an upcoming opportunity? Let's connect for a quick virtual chat and exchange ideas.

Volution Viewpoint Blogs

Philanthropy is Entering a Defining Generational Moment Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

AI in the Nonprofit Sector: Promise, Pitfalls, and Practical Guidance

The Most Important Relationship in a Nonprofit: The Executive Director and Board Chair

Articles to Read

Rewiring Talent to Value in the age of AI McKinsey & Company

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