Trademark program demonstrates best practices in board engagement, quality improvement
St. Aemilian-Lakeside’s unique stakeholder interview process engages board members, strengthens interagency relationships, and feeds an ongoing strategic planning process—all of which make the agency more nimble as a business and better equipped to serve Milwaukee’s children and families.
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Along with changing leaves and cooling air, autumn ushers in an annual tradition at Alliance for Children and Families member St. Aemilian-Lakeside, Milwaukee. Every year the agency convenes its board and a group of upper-level staff who venture into the community for face-to-face dialogue with a variety of organizational stakeholders—from funders to judges, school district officials, and leaders from other nonprofits.
During these annual interviews, board members inquire about stakeholders’ respective businesses and organizations, their upcoming challenges or opportunities, and anticipated impacts. Ultimately, the process allows interviewers to feel the pulse of each stakeholder and gauge how their circumstances may affect St. Aemilian-Lakeside in the coming year. It also provides an opportunity to learn about perceptions: How do stakeholders perceive the agency and its performance? How can the organization improve?
The process is more than just a methodical ritual. These “stakeholder interviews,” as St. Aemilian-Lakeside staff call them, have evolved into a trademark program. The interviews engage board members as agency ambassadors, solicit valuable feedback that gets plugged into an ongoing strategic plan, and build esteem between St. Aemilian-Lakeside and its stakeholders.
“In my experience it really is unique,” Jim Marks says of the interview process. As vice president and director of grant programs for the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, a philanthropic organization that has provided funding to St. Aemilian-Lakeside programs in the past, he has been interviewed several times since the initiative began in 2001.
“In fact, I really can’t think of too many other agencies that have done this kind of thing,” he adds. Other organizations have interviewed him for his philanthropic perspective, but none on a regular basis like St. Aemilian-Lakeside.
The initiative demonstrates St. Aemilian-Lakeside’s commitment to best practices in board engagement and continual quality improvement—two of the reasons why the organization earned an Alliance Agency of the Year Award in 2008. The awards recognize member organizations for their accomplishments across a full spectrum of leadership and management areas, including board participation and support; impact of advocacy efforts on local, state, or national levels; and innovative programs.
Board Members Play Lead Role
Over the years, St. Aemilian-Lakeside’s stakeholder interviews have realized a variety of results, including numerous benefits for the agency and the board, changes to agency programs, and shifts in priorities. 
Those results and the interview process’ success depend largely on the key role played by the agency board, says Teri Zywicki, president and CEO of St. Aemilian-Lakeside.
“It’s a process that promotes engagement outside of the boardroom which, in turn, brings a greater investment in the organization when the board meets in formal sessions,” adds Ann Umhoefer, chief administrative officer at St. Aemilian-Lakeside.
Bruce Kamradt, director of Wraparound Milwaukee, a county managed care program that contracts for more than $2 million in services with St. Aemilian-Lakeside, says he doesn’t usually see boards of directors—especially outside of a boardroom setting.
“We get surveys and questionnaires from other agencies in the mail, but I don’t recall anyone else who comes and sits down with me in that format,” he says.
For the 2008 stakeholder interviews, every member of St. Aemilian-Lakeside’s 16-person board participated, along with seven management staff, and three program directors. More than a dozen stakeholders are interviewed each year, with as many as 30 interviewed in a previous year, Umhoefer says.
Board members, staff, and stakeholders credit Zywicki for driving a thorough and ongoing strategic planning process that includes summaries of the stakeholder interview responses as one data component.
The strategic plan is updated on a monthly basis; board members receive a color-coded report: green is used to signify on-track items, yellow for changes or opportunities, and red for no progress. Each week throughout the year, when Zywicki’s seven-member management team meets, she says they read, review, and discuss at least one stakeholder interview.
By involving board members in stakeholder interviews and strategic planning, they become “full advocates for our strategic goals,” Zywicki says. “They’re already on board with us because they’ve heard it firsthand from somebody outside our agency.”
Initiative Provides Strategic Response
to Challenges
When Zywicki became president in 2001, St. Aemilian-Lakeside was facing a decline in residential placements, which posed a significant problem because of their high levels of reimbursement. The decrease in placements underscored a need to diversify the services offered—leading to expanded community-based services and treatment foster care programs, plus a restructuring of the board.
“It was crucial to become more nimble, more quick on our toes,” Zywicki says.
The stakeholder interviews grew from the strategic planning response to the decline in residential placements and greater involvement by a board committed to diversification and accountability, Zywicki says. She led St. Aemilian-Lakeside to look externally to determine what programs they could tailor to suit changing conditions and tightening funding streams.
Initially, Zywicki says the stakeholder interviews were with social service facilities, purchasers, judges, and school districts. Later, they added agencies like fellow Alliance member the Social Development Commission, Milwaukee, trying to learn of any overlap in services. Most recently, in 2008, interviewees included a number of Milwaukee County health and human services directors, social service agency supervisors, and foundation grant administrators.
The St. Aemilian-Lakeside management team meets each summer to brainstorm interview questions. (View a sample of questions used during 2008 stakeholder interviews.) Interviews typically are conducted in September. Interview notes are compiled along with employee feedback and any other additional input to inform an annual strategic retreat with the board in October.
New Programs, Strategic Priorities Result
What comes out of those strategic retreats is tangible.
Beginning with the first year of interviews, Zywicki says stakeholders consistently described one of St. Aemilian-Lakeside’s strengths as educating children with challenging needs. Buoyed by such feedback, the organization opened a public charter school in 2004.
Umhoefer says past stakeholder interviews also brought to light concern about the mental health needs of children in the communities St. Aemilian-Lakeside serves. In 2007, the agency responded by launching an initiative to infuse trauma informed care throughout the organization. Recognizing the profound biological, social, psychological, and emotional impact trauma has on individuals and their families, the agency developed practices that better create an environment for maximizing opportunities for change.
In part because of stakeholder interviews, Umhoefer says the agency applied for and received a contract to provide foster care training in Racine County (Wis.) in 2009.
Stakeholders also suggested loud and clear that youth aging out of foster care was a key concern, says John Teevan, St. Aemilian-Lakeside’s immediate past board chair. The organization has since collaborated with its state association, Alliance member the Wisconsin Association of Family & Children’s Agencies, Madison, Wis., and other state and local agencies to lobby for extended benefits for the more than 300 Wisconsin youth who age out each year. These efforts resulted in a draft bill that has support in the state legislature.
“We not only heard them, but we put our energy, minds, and mouths behind the effort,” Teevan says.
While the primary objective of the process is strategic, a series of beneficial secondary effects have also been realized, including the marketing opportunity afforded by face-to-face dialogue.
“One big misconception that we confronted for at least a decade was that we were a residential treatment facility only,” Teevan says. That perception caused a number of stakeholders to refer some services to other agencies. “We were able to turn that perception around.”
Staying Competitive
The stakeholder interviews also educate the board about the needs of children and families that they may not have firsthand experience with.
“It’s a great benefit because you hear what’s going on. You’re getting that on-the-street reconnaissance,” says Roger B. Siegel, current board chair. “To hear it from people versus reading it in the paper—that anecdotal testimonial is very powerful.”
Siegel adds that the interviews provide crucial customer feedback, evidence that St. Aemilian-Lakeside is doing what it says it’s doing. “There’s a real sense of accountability. We want to make sure we’re spending money where it needs to be going.”
Kamradt, who has been interviewed several times, says the process demonstrates the receptiveness of the organization and its board to feedback—both positive and negative. He, along with the overwhelming majority of stakeholder representatives interviewed since the process began, says he enjoys participating.
One reason is due to the feedback interviewers provide to interviewees. When St. Aemilian-Lakeside returns to the same stakeholder in future years, interviewees receive a copy of the previous interview summary as well as a report detailing what the organization has done in response to their prior feedback.
“I think our culture is to be transparent and to get as much participation as possible, at every level,” Zywicki says.
It wasn’t a surprise then when in 2008 the agency expanded its stakeholder interview process to include its own board, asking board members to provide feedback about their goals and priorities for the organization to St. Aemilian-Lakeside’s management team. “They encouraged us to work on our brand identity and make our message clear in a very busy marketplace of ideas,” Umhoefer says.
Zywicki sees the interviews as one component of the strategy to remain competitive. “To survive, you have to be efficient. To be efficient, you have to do collaboration and partnerships.”
Learn more about St. Aemilian-Lakeside.
