Girls Inc. Executive Director Pat Loomes has been at the helm of the San Leandro-based organization for nearly 30 years. In that time, Girls Inc. has transformed what started as a small recreational and educational program into a portfolio of award-winning initiatives serving 7,000 youth and their families in 40 schools and community sites throughout Alameda County. Girls Inc. offers programs in literacy, science and math, fitness, health and sexuality, and more. Its mission: “to inspire all girls to be strong, smart and bold.”

Shortly after Loomes announced that she would be stepping down, the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund approached her about making Girls Inc. an early test site for the Flexible Leadership Award program. Loomes said that she and her board of directors jumped at the chance to use the award funds (as much as $100,000 a year for three years) to help ensure a successful leadership transition for the organization.

“It’s not often that someone gives you this kind of funding to do the visioning work you need to do in order to keep the organization alive and strong,” Loomes said.

In the first year of the grant, Girls Inc. worked with a number of consultants to clarify the organization’s strategic priorities and its vision for the future. “The award gives us an opportunity to think about what drives this organization and what we want it to look like in the years ahead,” said Joyce Washington, chair of the Girls Inc. board of directors.

A key question at the heart of the organization’s deliberations was how to build the capacity of board and staff leaders to manage a crucial period of growth and change. To date, the grant funds from the Evelyn and Walter Hass, Jr. Fund have been used to pay for leadership coaching for the board and staff, plus consulting and training in strategic planning, fund development, senior team development, succession planning, governance and other crucial areas.

“In just the first year of the grant, Girls Inc.’s leaders are working together on a number of key issues” said Paula Morris, the lead consultant working with Girls Inc to develop their FLA plan. “But what is most remarkable,” said Morris, “is how it is beginning to help the staff and board think differently about what it will take to lead their organizations not just today but a few years out. As one of the senior staff put it to me: ‘the work that the FLA is supporting feels like a luxury, but it shouldn’t: it is pushing us in ways we didn’t expect and helping us to think clearly and strategically about our role as leaders.”

The most valuable outcome of the grant so far, according to Loomes and Washington, is agreement among the organization’s leaders on a strategic focus for the future. “Everyone is bought in and involved. We are all communicating,” Loomes said. As a result, Girls Inc. has a much better idea of the qualities to look for in a new executive director, and how the board and staff can make it a positive transition.

Washington added that there is “a new sense of the future” among Girls Inc.’s leaders— and “a new sense of how each of us can contribute to achieving our goals” for the organization.