Strategic Leadership and Discernment for Religious and Non-Profit Organizations

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Copyright © CFX Consulting Services. All rights reserved.

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How We Work With You

Implicit in the charism and mission of every religious and non-profit organization is a call.

It is a call to a future.  It is a call to more fully realize who you are and how you are invited to give service.  It is a call that can be discerned through honest assessment of your mission and charism in light of the signs of the times, the needs of those you serve, and your capability and capacity to meet those needs.  It is a call to choose - to choose those directions most faithful to your charism and mission, most appropriate to your capabilities and capacities, and most responsive to the needs of those you serve.  Finally, it is a call to act upon your choice.

Responding strategically to your call is not about fixing the past, or tinkering with the present, but about claiming and committing to your future.
"Fixing" and "tinkering" play an important role in the management of an organization; they keep the ship afloat and, we hope, on course.  But these activities are fundamentally about maintaining equilibrium.  In the age of information technology and globalization, when the needs of people are rapidly evolving in an environment that is undergoing continual and often disruptive change, equilibrium is no longer enough.   Indeed, while equilibrium may keep the ship afloat, the forces surrounding the organization too often cause it to drift off course - sometimes fatally - unless it has a clear strategy for navigation in new and often turbulent waters.   What is required of an organization today is the imagination, agility and courage to embrace a dynamic future for itself that is capable of responding to rapidly evolving needs within a changing environment, while simultaneously remaining wholly anchored in and impelled by its fundamental charism and mission.

Strategic Leadership and Discernment builds ownership of and commitment to the future to which you are called.
While a good well thought-out plan for the future is a sine qua non of building organization ownership of and commitment to a future, it is not enough.  It is not enough to have a compelling vision that you hope will be compelling enough for others to "buy into."  It is not enough to put together a reasonable, logical and doable plan, and assign out all the roles for implementation.  It is not enough for a board to approve the plan and then set aside fifteen minutes at every board meeting to review it and receive updates.  What is required is full organization commitment to the discerned future itself.  What is required is ownership of a shared vision, OUR vision - not "buy-in" to someone else's (or some committee's) vision.  What is required is a plan that animates everything everyone does - not merely a list of tasks and roles.  What is required is a chosen future that provides the framework and direction for all of the work undertaken by the governing board, not a strategic plan that is just one of many items on its agenda.   Strategic Leadership and Discernment articulates an ongoing way of being authentic and faithful; more than merely managing the complexity of an organization and maintaining equilibrium, it breathes life, opens hearts, and engenders greater freedom to embrace the future.

With skillful facilitation, information, imagination, daring and a commitment of time and resources, every religious and non-profit organization has, within its capacity, the ability to discern, choose and act upon its future in ways that will be far more effective - and faithful to itself - than any future proposed by an "outside expert."  

The potential to envision and choose the right future for your organization and for the people you serve is already with you.  Our work is about helping you clarify that future, find and choose the path that will get you there, develop the organizational will to begin and sustain that journey, and ensure that you have the agility and means to enter into that future, faithful to who you are and what you are called to do.

What We Believe

Charles Kelley, Principal Consultant

Drawing upon his extensive experience as a Catholic School educator and an organization development specialist, Charles Kelley, the principal of CFX Consulting Services, offers a distinctive, client-based approach to planning.   Unlike some professionals who use a ready-made process, he begins with you: your experience, your aspirations and your distinctiveness.  He works with you to custom-design and implement a way forward that reflects your organization’s core values and best addresses your needs.  His goal is to help your organization declare and commit to the future to which you are called — a future grounded in your charism, faithful to your mission, and responsive to the people you serve.

Before establishing an independent practice, Charles served as director of national planning for the Society of Jesus in the United States.  There he designed and facilitated a comprehensive strategic discernment focused on  choice of ministries, collaboration with lay partners, renewal of religious life, and reorganization of governance structures.  He has experience in Jesuit secondary education as a teacher, counselor, campus minister, vice-principal and president, and has served on a number of non-profit governing boards.

Charles completed his undergraduate education at Loyola University of Chicago (philosophy and counseling psychology), and holds masters degrees from Weston School of Theology (church ministry), Fordham University (secondary school administration), and Case Western Reserve University (non-profit management).

Who We Are

​​Learn more about our core philosophy, our collaborative approach, and our principal consultant, Charles Kelley.

We custom design with you a process that reflects and expresses your unique charism and mission, while integrating the principles and best practices of communal discernment, strategic planning, organization development and process facilitation.

1. Why a custom design?   There are any number of off-the-shelf processes and templates that an organization can employ to meet a variety of needs.  Sadly, however, processes and templates that come off the shelf most often lead to products and results that are put back on the shelf - usually to collect dust.  If the process undertaken feels like someone else's work, then the products will likely feel like they belong to someone else, too.  Custom-designing places ownership, from the very outset, on the organization itself, making it far more likely that the results will also be owned and implemented.
2. Why grounded in your charism and mission?  For religious and non-profit organizations, mission is more than just the inspiring words hanging in your lobby, and charism is more than just a set of value statements to which you aspire. These comprise your very identity and sense of purpose: who you are, what you believe, and how you feel called.  If your process is not grounded in these, then your results will be generic and empty: nice sounding words and inspiring phrases that ultimately have little impact, provide vague direction and are soon forgotten.   But  grounding the process in your charism and mission ensures that will you be able to find yourself and the future you are called to in the outcomes.
3.  Why best practices?  It is likely that flowing out of your charism and mission is a customary way of proceeding - processes and means for deliberation, decision and action.  Our collaboration with you begins with and employs that way of proceeding.  But in doing so, we work to enhance it with best practices from the fields of communal discernment, strategic planning, organization development and process facilitation that complement - but do not supersede - your way of proceeding.  Our goal is not only to strengthen the current deliberation with these best practices, but to offer you tools that you can employ in future deliberations.

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We engage the experience and perspective of a broad cross-section of those who serve the organization and those who are served by it.

It is quite likely that three or four of the best and the brightest in your organization could take an extended and intensive weekend retreat and come up with a pretty impressive plan for your organization.  But that plan would have only three or four owners - the authors; as a consequence, it would look good in a binder on a book shelf, but would have little effect otherwise.  In at least two important ways, engaging organization stakeholders at every stage of the process is critical for achieving successful results:

1. Better Information, Multiple Perspectives and More Ideas: Engaging a diversity of experiences and perspectives of people gives greater depth, breadth, relevance and credibility to the resulting product.
2. "Stakeholder" Ownership:  When people participate in a process - even in small ways - they claim ownership for the process, and are more likely to trust it.  Such ownership of and trust in process engenders ownership of and trust in the results.  And that ownership breathes life into the organization - instead of dusty binders.

​We form a partnership with you, collaborating, communicating and coordinating at every stage of the process.

Successful processes are led by the organization itself - not by an outside consultant. While the consultant can provide process design, management, facilitation, counsel and resources, only members of the organization can lead the process.  The consultant's role is to support and strengthen the strategic leadership and discernment of the organization, never to supplant it.  From the beginning of our relationship,  we work to build a full partnership with you comprising mutual support, transparency, encouragement, common purpose and shared commitment.

C                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Copyright © CFX Consulting Services.  All Rights Reserved.