ADVANS Initiative
By the end of 2019 we will have helped 34 organizations and invested over $3.9 million over four counties.
ADVANS (Advancing and Developing the Value and Assets of Nonprofits in Syracuse), is our signature capacity building program. Since 2007 we have graduated over 34 organizations and invested over $3.9 million over four counties. More than 150 nonprofit executives, staff and board members from Central New York have (or soon will be) participated in ADVANS through involvement in the leadership teams.
Did you know that we commissioned an outside firm to conduct a major evaluation of our ADVANS program? The findings were recently published in our Fall 2020 newsletter along with our plans for the future:
ADVANS is founded on the Nonprofit Lifecycles approach, the theory behind which states that all organizations go through developmental stages – those that have the most impact, and are sustainable in the long run, understand their developmental stage and consciously strive to progress in their development. ADVANS was led by Dr. Susan Kenny Stevens until 2016 when she named Stephanie Small of Synergy Partners Consulting, a consultant with whom she had worked extensively, to succeed her as lead consultant.
Now a 2 year cohort learning model, ADVANS offers the opportunity for shared learning across a spectrum of organizations that range widely in budget size, focus area and geography. All the ADVANS organizations form a learning community both within and across cohorts and participate in regular ADVANS celebrations.
Participation in the ADVANS program (by invitation only) requires a significant commitment of time. Each organization fields leadership teams of staff and board members and works with an assigned Lifecycles trained consultant to conduct a thorough Lifecycles assessment of programs, governance, management, administrative systems and financial resources. After completion of the assessment organizations either receive immediate consulting and capacity grant support or, in previous cohorts, have extended their work into business planning and further consulting and capacity investments from the Foundation.
Interested in learning more? Contact Lindsay McClung.
“[These participants], and indeed many of the nonprofits in Central New York, now speak in a common vocabulary… And with these words come a set of strategic and operational expectations that [not only] influence management and governance thought processes and practices now, but are also designed to have lasting community value.”
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